


Strays

by SLWalker



Series: Game of Thrones: Alderaan [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Friendships, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Major Character Injury, Mention of offscreen suicides, Miscarriage, Multi, Polyamory, Recovery, Skiing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:43:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: Bail goes against the advice of both his wife and his lover to go into a warzone to bring aid and relief, but it's Maul who pays for it in blood.  Maybe it's coincidence or maybe it's the will of the Force, when one of the last of the Jedi is in the area to help.  (And maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi needs help, too.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is five years after 'Trouble' and therefore way out of context.

The worst part of it was that he had been warned.  And not only once.

“I don’t like this. _Breha_ doesn’t like this.”  Maul’s face had been set in grim lines, making him look more seasoned than his twenty-six years would normally suggest, as they stood at the gangway of the ship Bail was planning on taking, offering one last plea.  “Bail– please reconsider.”

“I can’t.  Did you see those kids?  I’m not going to just sit in an office and send credits.”  Bail had heard it from both of them more times than he could count, just in the past three days, but he had to be there.  When the Outer Rim Relief Organization – which House Organa was a major donor to, enough so that Bail was on the board of directors – had sent back the images of the war-torn landscape they were trying to bring aid to, he knew he had to be there.

If he would have known what was going to happen--

Still, Bail had been raised on such service; even if he hadn’t been, though, the images gave him nightmares.  He couldn’t stop thinking about it; the sight of children, missing limbs.  The sight of destroyed homes.  Even the animals, domestic and wild, had paid a terrible price.

Breha couldn’t go; she was next in line for the crown. The Alderaanian monarchy belonged to their queens and had since the civil war.  House Organa had the crown, but Breha Organa, though born of House Antilles, was going to be the queen when Bail’s mother stepped down after the first of the following year.  (The fact that she thought this was both reckless and dangerous didn't factor into Bail's equations, either; she had a whole world to shoulder soon, on top of the private struggles, she was just trying to watch out for what she thought was best, but so was Bail.)

He had gathered what volunteers he could, had the biggest ship available to him provisioned, and had gone.  No one wanted him to go into a war zone, but Bail couldn’t stomach the thought of just staying back, relying on his privilege as an excuse for why he couldn’t get involved more directly.  Any other reasons he might have had were firmly shoved into some dark corner of his mind; he was going to do  _something_ , something good, because something needed to be done.  Bringing aid, even if it was only supplies, two strong hands and his willingness kept his own sense of helplessness at bay.

Despite protests, Maul went with him; once Bail had set his mind on it, Maul didn’t try to talk him out of it any further, and even though he still looked grim and worried, he boarded the ship.  Bail was secretly relieved; beyond the fact that an environmental scientist wouldn’t go totally amiss on a world damaged by war, he was just glad that one of the two people he loved desperately would be by his side through this.

When he woke up from the nightmares on the two day hyperspace flight, he woke up to a warm hand stroking up and down his back, soothing them away as far as they could be.

The fighting had mostly tapered by the time they had gotten there, but not entirely.  Pockets of insurgents still held their ground.  The entire thing came about because of a dispute over a crown, and later, Bail would reflect that maybe that was another reason he had been so serious about going.  Alderaan had survived, albeit before his time, and he wanted to see another world survive the same way.

He would also finally acknowledge that Breha’s second miscarriage had a lot to do with it.

Ultimately, though, for all of Bail’s reasoning for why he went, he wasn’t the one who paid for it.

It was a dismal world; shattered trees outside of the city denoted the crater-marked ground where people had been shelled out of existence.  Even when the clouds cleared, the air had a hazy cast to it and smelled sharp, of sulfur and burn; it was the wet season there, but the regular rains that came down didn't manage to clean the acrid bite out of the air.  Once the supplies were dropped off and the volunteers set to work in one of the refugee centers, Bail had made the decision to go out into the unsecured areas in order to help any victims of the most recent bombings get to a place of safety.

It was while they were directing survivors to the transport that would lead to a refugee center in one of the stable parts of the city that it happened: Without any warning, a sniper opened fire.

Bail hadn’t even had time to react when Maul had slammed into him from behind, knocking him back behind cover and almost off of his feet; he must have sensed it coming, because he had been moving before the shot had even been fired.  Bail whipped around and caught his lover, wide-eyed and staring out into the murky light of day.  “Kriff, that was–”

But it wasn’t _close_.  

It was a direct hit.

Maul hadn’t made a sound, but his knees buckled and his fingers were nerveless where they clutched at Bail’s shirt, and Bail instinctively tightened his grip in support, not yet understanding what was happening.  It took only seconds for the realization to hit, but it could have been forever, and when it did–

The smell of burned skin and the coppery smell of blood mingled with the smoke in the atmosphere and the musty hints of impending rain and then he _knew._

“No, nononono,” Bail heard himself saying – _pleading_ – a frantic litany of denial tumbling out of his mouth as he lowered them both to the ground, because help wasn’t anywhere _near_ here, that was why people were being evacuated; he managed to get it together long enough to yell for a medic or anyone, but even as he did, he knew help wasn’t likely to get there in time, if it got there at all.  Outside the half-ruined building, blaster fire was being exchanged; inside, Bail was watching the light fading out of Maul’s eyes with terrifying speed, babbling pleas like they could make a difference, feeling the blood soak hot and thick through his sleeve from where he had his arm around Maul’s back.

“Don’t go,” he begged, even as Maul’s eyes closed, breath nothing more than short, wet and ragged gasps through blood-stained teeth.  As if begging could save him.  _“Don’t go.”_

Someone else came up and Bail looked up in desperate hope that it was a medic or– or _anyone_ who could–

The man went down to his knees and reached out, pressing his hand to Maul’s chest; something in the back of Bail’s mind whispered, _Jedi._

Some other part answered that it couldn’t be, because there _were_ no Jedi anymore.

“–not my strength, but I _think_ I can keep him alive long enough to get him to a hospital,” the man was saying, lines of strain at the corners of his blue eyes, voice tight but calm.  He didn’t _look_ like a medic, not with the beard and the wind-blown reddish hair, but Bail didn’t care _what_ he was, if what he said was true.

“Where–” Bail said, but he wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to finish that question.  Where did he come from?  Where were they going to go?

The man turned his gaze up to Bail, voice hard as he said, “Don’t ask questions, just– do as you’re told, and hopefully this won’t be in vain.”

 

 

 

The hospital was overcrowded; passing through the gateway of the grounds had been another piece of education as to the costs of war.

Bail barely remembered it, even while it was happening.  He remembered them boarding the transport, and the wide berth everyone gave them, as if somehow the physical devastation was contagious; he remembered the man with them being grimly silent as he got both hands on Maul and held eerily still until they landed.  He remembered that the blood coating his arm and parts of his belly and chest was largely cooling and not the scalding hot it had been, and how much of it there was anyway.

Mostly, what Bail would remember was just how very still and lifeless Maul was; the way the brilliant color of his skin had gone ashen in a way Bail had never seen before and never wanted to see again.

He didn’t believe in any gods, but he prayed anyway.  He knew Breha wasn’t here, but he apologized to her in his mind a thousand times, the several thousand more that he wasn’t apologizing to Maul.

Handing his unconscious, dead-weight lover off to the overtaxed emergency personnel had been one of the top five worst moments of his life.

He had never been to a warzone before.  Not like this.  And waiting to find out if someone he loved had survived wasn’t _new_ to him, but this was the first time it had ever been his fault.

True to his word, the bearded man had managed to keep Maul on this side of the divide between life and death, but barely; towards the end, it was clear that he was struggling to not only keep moving, but to-- do whatever it was he was doing that kept Maul breathing long past when he would have stopped.  When they were finally inside, the emergency personnel were fast in getting a gurney, and the man had actually gotten permission to go back through the doors with them, and Bail was left to watch them both disappear, standing there shivering alone until someone had shoved him out of the way.

Now, as Bail paced in the short span of space afforded to him in an overcrowded waiting area that had once been a cafeteria, he felt empty, panicky _loss_.

His arms felt wrong.  His lungs felt wrong.

 _Everything_ felt wrong.

He turned to pace another lap, shirt and skin stiff with his lover’s drying blood, and almost ran into the man who had come to their rescue.

“Come on,” he said, holding a hand up to corral Bail into stillness. “Let’s get you cleaned up some.  There’s someone holding a spot open in the washroom for you.”

Bail stopped pacing and rubbed his hands one over the other absently, rust red flaking off of them. “You’re a Jedi, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice thready.

The man blinked once, something there and then gone across his expression just that quickly. “There are no Jedi,” he said, almost gently, as he took Bail by the elbow to steer him.

Bail _knew_ that, but he could almost feel it, he could– he wasn’t Force sensitive, really, no where on the level Maul was, but something in his mind refused to assign any other term to the bearded man.  And only a Jedi would have been able to do what he did.  Keep someone down a lung and down a heart alive on the beat of the other one long enough to reach help by what seemed the power of sheer, concentrated _will_.

He didn’t say anything else, though, as the man steered him past the people into the washroom.  The looks of the beleaguered blurred; some shell-shocked, some sympathetic, some just extremely, deeply exhausted.  Bail tried to balk because he wasn’t– they needed to go ahead–

The man didn’t let him, just kept that iron grip on his arm. “You’re the one who’s covered in blood, and you’re frightening people,” he said, not harshly, but firmly. He tugged Bail to the sink and pushed his hands out of his way to get to his shirt, unbuttoning it.

“He tried to tell me, I should have listened,” Bail said, going to unbutton his own shirt and only really succeeding in getting in the way.  He couldn’t stop looking around, either; gaze glancing off of things, as if he were looking for trouble, but unable to focus enough to see it, if it were even there. “He tried to tell me not to come here.  My wife did, too.  I should have listened, why didn’t I _listen?”_

For the second time, the man pushed his hands out of the way, this time more seriously. “It doesn’t matter right now,” he said, and when Bail looked at him in shock and horror, he frowned. “What I mean is, it’s not the time to ask that.  Ask it later, but right now, the thing you need to be doing is getting cleaned up and calmed down.”

“I’m calm,” Bail said, which was a complete lie, but he was trying hard to make it a truth.  He finally let the man pull his shirt off, then struggled out of his undershirt and stood there.  Now that he wasn’t pacing or moving, he started shaking. “You have to be a Jedi.”

The man pressed his mouth into a line, wetting the clean edge of Bail’s undershirt and using it to mop away blood. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“I’m sorry.”  Bail meant it, too.  Not just for not letting it go, but for what had happened to the Order.

The outbreak three years before had decimated the Order.  It was a virus, though no one figured that out before it was too late; waterborne, it spread from Coruscant’s underground reservoirs and passed with truly horrible ease, wildfire fast, incubating unknown for long enough to infect vast numbers of people before coming alive.  It wiped out an entire three quarters of all midichlorians.  For the general population, it had done little _notable_ damage, but–

For the Jedi, for all Force sensitives, it was _catastrophic._

Bail remembered the tense period on Alderaan; they'd hosted Jedi on the planet many times over many years.  And there was Maul, who could _feel_ it, even so far away; he had been so on edge that he’d jump at any unexpected noise or touch, so on edge that he had to take a quarter off of school and could barely bring himself to leave the Palace.

Bail’s mother had been on it quickly, putting quarantine procedures into place to keep the plague from their door and what few outbreaks they had contained, but other worlds had not been so lucky.

He remembered how the media was all over it.  The Senate.  How _bad_ it was.  The Jedi had tried hard to maintain their culture and lives, as before, but without access to the Force, it had proven to be too much.  Some of them faded into the world, and Bail had seen pictures of them, their haunted eyes.  Some of them stayed on Coruscant, working with scientists to try to find a way to reverse the effects.

Some of them killed themselves.  To return to the Force they could no longer hear.

Finding one here, of all places–

The man caught Bail by the chin, raising his eyebrows at him and speaking deliberately, “I’ll make you a deal: You pull yourself together, and I’ll tell you more.  All right?  You’ll do him no good in this state.  Nor yourself.”

Bail almost couldn’t take the contact; his vision blurred and he shook so hard his teeth rattled.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.  Just _calm yourself_.  Deep breaths.  He’s still alive, I can feel him from here.”

If Bail almost couldn’t take the contact, he _definitely_ couldn’t take that.  Not because the news wasn’t welcomed – oh, was it – but because he just _couldn’t_.

He spent the next five minutes sobbing incoherently into the shoulder of the maybe-Jedi.

 

 

 

It was hours before Bail could get access to a comm station that could reach off-planet.

All the while, the man stayed with him; they hadn’t even introduced themselves properly, though Bail had tried once, but the man nonetheless remained close by.  Even when he disappeared, he came back quickly; he always seemed to know before Bail even looked around for him.  They had to leave the hospital, much to Bail’s quiet terror – as if somehow his very proximity could keep his lover afloat – in order to even find a place with an open comm, and Bail looked as much a refugee as any of the others in a borrowed shirt that didn’t fit right, shell-shocked and exhausted.

He was _calm_ , though.  Not the true calm of peacefulness, but the kind that came when a person had been scrambling so hard that they were finally too tired to continue to.  He managed to wrap some semblance of his usual persona around himself, the man who was prince and future Viceroy of Alderaan and thinking of becoming a Senator, enough to move through places on the force of his demeanor, the implied strength in his imposing size.

All of that quite nearly dissolved when he finally did manage to get through to his wife.

Her eyes hardened in fear on her first look at him – screen communication, rather than holo, that was how primitive this place was – and he could see her draw on the quiet strength that had seen her through her own wars, both those before his time and those that they had shared since.

And he also saw the godsawful expression when he told her what had happened; as if someone had reached into her and grabbed her heart and squeezed all of the blood out of it.

 _“Bring him home, Bail,”_ she ordered, and if anything told the story of how frightened she was, it was the quiver in her voice. _“I’ll send a ship equipped for it.  Keep your private comm active.”_

There was no arguing with that tone; Bail had no desire to even _try_.  He had discovered quite early on that this woman he had been arranged into marriage with was incredibly formidable; before she was Minister of Education, before she was in line for the crown, she had been a teacher.  Breha had been on worlds like this, war-torn worlds, sometimes in truly deadly situations, and had only come back to Alderaan on her family’s orders.  To anyone just looking at her, she looked like a well-bred, well-cultured woman of refinement – and she _was_ – but she had also herded an entire classroom’s worth of children into a bunker and sat out three days of siege, keeping herself and those kids alive.  She had been in more refugee camps in her years teaching than most people could even fathom.

Why hadn't he  _listened_ to her?

“I’m sorry, Dove,” Bail said, voice cracking, and wishing for the millionth time that he had never done this.

Her mouth trembled, then steadied, and even though she quite clearly was still grappling with the fact that his outing had gotten Maul shot, her expression still softened into reassurance.   _“We’ll all talk this over.  Just– bring him home, and come home safe yourself.”_

Bail didn’t want to sign off, but other people needed to use the comm.  When he walked back out of the building, the man was there again.

“You didn’t tell me you were _that_ Bail,” he said, a little accusatory, which sort of surprised Bail– he thought for sure he had given his house name, in addition to his given name.

The idea that the maybe-Jedi had been eavesdropping didn’t even cross his mind right then.  "How many Bails do you know?“ he asked, which was a very poor attempt at a joke.  It was an incredibly common name on Alderaan, and indeed had spread out from there over the generations.  There were Bails everywhere.  Swing a tooka, hit at least three.  They had an entire damned section in the Annual Refresher Reader that came out, many of which involved jokes about the bailing of water or the bailing-out of people in jail, in addition to person-of-interest stories.

“I know _of_ several.”  The maybe-Jedi’s eyes narrowed. “Only one who’s currently higher than yourself in politics."

Bail nodded, crossing his arms against the weight of the rain-laden clouds above, tucking his hands into his armpits. "I’m sorry, I thought I’d told you my name.”

The man didn’t look much happier, but apparently Bail was cutting a pathetic enough figure to take the edge off of his offense.  Bail didn’t even begin to know _why_ he was offensive right now, but given how the day had gone, he couldn’t really sling any blame for it.  "Yes, well.  Now that I do know, _Prince Bail Organa_ , I think it’s high time we get off of the streets for the night,“ the man sighed, keeping his voice down to keep it between them.

"We need to go back to the hospital,” Bail answered, because he’d already been away too long, and he was hoping desperately that they had pulled off a miracle.  He knew what Maul looked like angry; knew the quiet simmer of it, the way he’d raise his chin and the way his shoulders would set, and it was quite a look to be on the other end of.

Bail wanted nothing more than to have that golden glare on him right now.

The man paused and then sighed out again and nodded.  "All right, but I doubt you’ll be able to see him.  They don’t exactly have space for visitors to roam.“

"It doesn’t matter.  Breha will send the fastest ship we have available, anyway.”  Bail fell in step as they started walking, barely noticing his shivering.  "I should be there, I need to be there."

"I suppose it’s a moot point to ask what a prince was doing in a war-zone with a wildly tattooed zabrak?”

“They’re markings,” Bail said, tightening his arms against his chest, “not tattoos.  And he’s half-zabrak, half-human; he was born a Nightbrother of Dathomir, at least from what we know from genetics, but he’s Alderaanian in every way that matters.”  He was aware of the man he was walking with looking over, one eyebrow climbing; Bail latched onto his own mild pique to add, “His name is Maul, but if you want to get formal, he’s _Lord_ Maul of House Organa.  He’s an environmental scientist, he specializes in geology and forestry, and he’s happiest when he’s hanging off the sides of mountains or stinking like sulfur from sticking his arms in volcano vents, or curing tree diseases.”

Unless one counted when they were in bed together, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up.  It had been a painfully long time since that had been fact anyway.

Bail always took some sharp pleasure in correcting misconceptions about Maul; there was a moment of admittedly unkind amusement when people realized that the usually plainly-dressed zabrak was actually lord of a noble house.  And holder of a doctorate.  With high honors.  Dashing their misconceptions was pretty much _sport_ for Bail, Breha and– well, anyone who knew and loved him.

“Sometimes for fun, I’ll grab a handful of rocks from wherever we’re walking and hand them over to him, and he’ll be able to name most of them and tell me something about them.  Other people want diamonds for gifts; I find him the rarest, weirdest geodes I can and he gets a kick out of them, even the really ugly ones.  My mother adores him; I think he might have saved her life without even meaning to, just by being there.  My wife adores him; they put their heads together and plan environmental educational programs that half a dozen Republic planets have added to their curriculum with two dozen more inquiries being processed.”  Something awful twisted in Bail’s gut.  "And I almost got him killed today.“

The man he was walking with had stayed silent throughout that, but at Bail’s last words, he took a slow breath and let it out.  "Strong in the Force, though.  I was already heading your way– I thought maybe I was sensing another Jedi, but…”

There was something in the man’s tone that jarred Bail momentarily out of his self-recrimination; he looked over, taking in the mixed expression of loneliness and wistfulness.  "You weren’t on Coruscant when it spread?“

"No.”  The man palmed over his face, smoothing over his beard, then shook his head.  He wasn’t very old, he didn’t look older than thirty, but the weariness and ache radiating off of him made him seem twice that.  "No, I– was out here, in the Outer Rim, looking for someone.  I was going to go back, but I was warned away.  I could feel it happening–“  He cut himself off, then shook his head again.

"Maul could, too.  It was– it was bad.”

“Yes.”  The man pressed his mouth into a line, then looked over, eyes tired. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Formerly a knight of the Jedi Order.  Now– I suppose wanderer.”

Bail offered as much a smile back as he could muster up.  "And rescuer of foolish princes and Force-strong environmentalists.”

"One of the better things I’ve done today,” Obi-Wan offered back, expression softening, and something in the air between them eased.  "Come on, we’re almost there.  Maybe we’ll get some news.“

 

 

 

In the eleven years, give or take a few months, that Maul had been a part of Bail’s life, Bail could only remember one time when he had been physically laid low by something. He struggled mentally early on, right out of prison, traumatized and suffering deep depression, then later anxiety, and there were periods since then where he had rough times, but only once had Maul actually been physically knocked down.

It had been a human-specific flu that had worked its way in from the Outer Rim to the Core Worlds. Of course, everyone on the estate had been vaccinated, except for Maul, because most single-species bugs that came up against his hybrid nature ran screaming.

Needless to say, this one proved to be the one tougher than Maul’s normally quite efficient immune system, and after a brief trip with Bail’s mother to Coruscant where he happened to run into this bug, he came home and spent the next three days in bed.  Specifically, he spent it in Bail’s bed; it was the one time when everyone knew Maul was there and no one thought anything of it, because from the minute Bail had laid eyes on the zabrak in prison, it had been Bail’s self-appointed duty to take care of him and time, maturity, sex and romance might have changed the _how_ quite a bit since that first kiss, but not the fact that Bail still considered it an intrinsic part of his reason for being in the universe in the first place.

At first it was only a headache, and Maul begged off of dinner and slept through the early half of evening, but then it hit him like a ton of duracrete blocks and by the dark hours of morning, he was half of out his head delirious with fever. The doctor was called, but there wasn't much to be done for it but keeping an eye on it; he strapped a monitor on Maul’s wrist and left behind medication in case the fever climbed higher than a certain number, but otherwise, the consensus was to let it run its course.

It had been five months since they had been a couple, three since they had started having sex, two since they had started sleeping together every night and Maul had essentially moved in with Bail -- the adjoining suites made that logistically easy -- but it was the first time Bail had ever realized that he was actually capable of committing murder with his own bare hands, and the second time in his life he realized his mother was capable of the same.

It was during one of the bad spells; Maul was particularly out of it, and he was trying to apologize to someone he addressed as _master_.  Bail’s mother had been sitting in periodically, just concern, and even as the ice cold sensation of fear and anger hit Bail, her eyes became diamond hard.  She shushed and soothed and petted, voice never wavering from the gentle pitch Bail remembered from whenever he took ill in childhood, but once Maul was settled back down and asleep, she only said, “If I ever find who that was, they’ll need a mop and bucket to collect the body.”

The tone was perfectly calm.  Bail had only heard it once before, when her brother’s murderers had received a  _fine_.

He didn’t doubt for a second that Mazi Organa would make that happen, too.  He just knew that she would have to beat him to it.

When it turned out that the monster had been a _Senator_ \-- Palpatine of Naboo -- Bail didn't know how to handle it.  The man was already dead; all Bail had left was the ability to hope he had suffered as he burned in his crashed air speeder.

That was the worst of it, though.  At some point, after Bail’s mother had left again to get some sleep, Bail had dug out the thin old pillow he kept in bed to protect him from being stabbed by horns, stuck it in his armpit, got Maul tucked in against his side and dozed in and out himself.  It was actually physically _uncomfortable_ , holding a fusion reactor made flesh -- if that was an exaggeration, it didn’t feel like one -- but Bail stayed right there, and when he was awake, he spent the time stroking Maul’s head and face and neck, and by afternoon, the fever broke.  Aside a fairly awful cough and a much more mild headache, and aside being run-down tired, Maul was fine and back on his feet the following day.

He never spoke of his life before prison; the second time Bail asked him, he had quite kindly told Bail that he wasn’t ever going to discuss it, so Bail should pick another topic.  The look in his eyes had been impossible to argue with; sweet and sad and entirely unyielding.

Whatever Bail’s lover had survived, he had put it in its grave already, even if he still carried the marker for it.  Whatever Bail’s curiosity -- and dread -- Maul’s respect meant more to him, and so he never did ask again.

Any which way, this--  this was different.  This was so much worse.

Bail _did_ get to visit; it was again the dark hours of morning, when most people had been treated or triaged and families were asleep, either in the cafeteria turned waiting room or at home.  He had been informed by a harried young doctor, normally green face nearly gray with exhaustion, that they had been able to save Maul’s lung, but there wasn’t enough remaining of his left heart to save; he was going to need a replacement, of which there were none available here and likely wouldn’t be anytime soon.

He was alive, and about as stable as he possibly could be in such a state, but there was no treating this properly here.  There wasn’t even _bacta_ available; just machines and tubes and saline.  What few med-droids there were whined alarmingly, in need of maintenance and downtime.

The best they could do for Maul was keep him on life support until he could be relocated or until he died, whichever came first.

Bail had been helpless before in his life, and he hated it every single time.  Both times his wife miscarried; the first, he had been home.  The second, it had been Maul who called him home; he had only gone after she passed the third month, and even then he had been anxious about leaving, but when it seemed that everything was going all right, he had finally taken the business trip he’d cancelled eighteen times.

Both times, all he could do was hold her when he was there to hold her.  The first had hurt.

The second had devastated all three of them.

Bail palmed down his face with his free hand, trembling, and tried to think about-- anything else.

“He loves you, you know,” Obi-Wan said, from where he had just been standing quietly.

Bail did know that.  He nodded, rubbing his thumb against the backs of Maul’s fingers like he could massage some warmth into them, hating how _cold_ they felt.  “I know.”

“It was the last thing I got off of him, before he was gone too deep to read.”  Obi-Wan crossed his arms, letting out a slow breath. “I might have kept him tethered here, but he had as much a hand in saving himself as I had in it.  You can’t-- make someone stay, if they don’t want to.”

Bail finally looked up, taking in the Jedi’s exhausted expression. “Have you ever tried that before?”

“Once or twice.  This was the first time I succeeded.”

It was hard to know what to say to that.  The more Bail learned about their unlikely rescuer, in little pieces here or there, the more he could see the shape of a tragedy made of flesh and blood.  Obi-Wan was a hard man when need be, but when that mask slipped, even in this state Bail could see the sorrow and the loneliness.  He wondered, a little, if Obi-Wan had been disappointed to find that the other Force user he had sensed turned out not to be a Jedi.

As far as Bail knew them, they were as much culture as religion; the Order had been likened to monks, to a tribe, to a clan, to madness or to glory.  All of those things.   _Other_.  But aside the amazing feat he had pulled earlier, aside the slightly detached demeanor, Bail really only saw a very tired man.

He knew better than to offer monetary compensation.  But even reeling, he thought to offer _something._

“I’d like you to come back with us,” he said, drawing a bit on his own years of training to sound just formal enough to make the offer serious and just personable enough to keep it from sounding stiff.

Obi-Wan stared at him, huffing a breath out his nose; in the relatively dim light, his blue eyes looked washed out dark gray.  “Why?” he asked.

A lot of Bail’s reasons were nebulous.  At least, they were nebulous right now, when it was hard for him to think of more than how badly he wished he could go back in time and take that blaster fire himself.  But however bad his instincts had proven to be today, he had to believe that there was some reason Obi-Wan had been close by them; some reason why their paths had crossed.

“I won’t deny some of it’s gratitude and a desire to pay you back,” Bail said, frankly, and was not surprised by the hard, affronted look he got in turn. “But there’s another really good reason,” he added, nodding towards Maul. “You say he’s strong in the Force, but I know that he isn’t really _trained_ in using it.  He can do some things, but I know he can’t do what he should be capable of because no one’s been there to show him how.  And there aren’t exactly teachers around these days who can help with that.”

That got a bit more of an uncertain expression back.  Bail had been in the world long enough to recognize interest, even carefully banked. “To what end?” the Jedi asked, after a beat.

Bail went in for the metaphorical kill. “If there’s ever a next time, maybe he’ll be able to save someone else.”

 

 

 

Obi-Wan didn’t answer him then.  Bail didn’t restate the offer.  He didn’t know if the Jedi would go with them until right before he was about to board the ship Breha sent -- one of the fastest in Alderaan’s planetary defense force, their own family doctor onboard and the state of the art medbay already ready -- and found Obi-Wan beside him with a beaten backpack over one robed shoulder, expression some aching mix between troubled and relieved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half retrospective; how did things end up here?

His mother found him sitting on the commons balcony, contemplating the colors of sunset against the mountains.

Queen Mazicia Organa, now; as per tradition, House Organa would officially move into the palace, and the estate would be maintained in perpetuity until such time as the crown passed to another noble family. Then they would return.

Nothing would strictly stop them coming back to stay here or there in the meantime, and Bail thought likely his father would spend most of his time here, but it was still quite an upheaval. Even if it was expected and planned for.

All of this was.

"You would think that you had been sentenced to death, rather than the future position of Viceroy," she observed, stepping over and drawing her weathered fingers through his hair, as she had done all his life.

Bail tipped his head back to look at her; he favored his father's coloring and build, but at his heart, he was his mother's child. He understood why House Organa had maneuvered to take the monarchy; power could be used to great good or terrible evil, but to use it at all, one had to have it. Alderaan as a world was peaceful, beautiful and politically quite honorable; a Queen could not only safeguard that, but plan for its continued future. And it was not a case where other bloodlines weren't involved; ever since the civil war, the Queen was the ruler. Sometimes that would be an Organa by blood, but just as often that would be whoever married into the family, too; it helped keep other Houses in the loop and therefore less contentious.

When Bail's mother died or stepped down, it would be Breha Antilles, who would be Bail's wife by then.

"I'm all right," Bail answered, forcing a smile more for her benefit than his own, before going back to watching mountains. "Just-- processing."

And worrying. Because Bail had been raised his whole life to aspire and serve both; to acquire power enough to then use it in service to this House, this world, this system, this Republic. Marriage to further that had _always_ been in his cards. He was honestly surprised that he had gotten to stay a bachelor this long, though when he really thought about it, he could see where his mother may well have seen this coming from some time back and just waited until she could make the best possible match.

Bail had been raised to do this.

Maul had not.

He didn't get possessive or mean about it; had not turned to jealousy or ill-temper. Instead, Bail's lover had somewhat darted back into the shell he'd been in when he arrived here years ago; had gotten quiet and withdrawn and distracted. He still slept with Bail every night, but he was restless in bed and woke up more than once from nightmares. When they were holding each other, Maul held on tighter than usual; when they kissed, there was an undertone of desperation now that there hadn't been.

Bail was going to meet the woman he was supposed to be marrying tomorrow -- formally, as he remembered running into her occasionally when they were much younger -- and yet, all he could do was worry that this might ruin the life of someone he loved.

Not very service-minded of him. But it was hard to be, when he could remember the way Maul held onto him like he might turn to smoke and drift away forever.

His mother didn't say anything for a long time; she just stroked his hair, both affectionate and soothing. When she did speak, it was considered. "I couldn't have picked better for you, in terms of a wife. I think you'll find her understanding, if not forgiving, should you decide to tell her about your affair with Maul."

It took several seconds more than it should have for that to properly sink in; when it did, it felt like Bail's entire circulatory system had been flooded with ice water. He froze, looking back up at his mother, and he didn't even have it in him to deny it. When she just looked back at him, mild as a fine summer day, he managed to choke out, "How long have you known?"

"That you two are together? Since your sisters all asked me within the same day -- independently -- if you were seeing anyone, and I saw that the way you looked at him had changed. I _was_ young once, darling." Bail's mother quirked an eyebrow at him. "Unless you're asking how long I've known that he was in love with you, in which case the answer is since he was eighteen and had a hard time looking at anyone else whenever you happened to be in the room."

Bail's mouth worked without any thought attached to it, as he gaped. When he did manage to say something, it was breathless. "I didn't know until he kissed me." _Two years?!_ he thought, knocked on his rear.

"I wasn't sure if he would ever work up the nerve to do something about it." She shrugged, then went back to stroking Bail's hair. "He was beautiful and artless in his innocence; scandalous or not, I wasn't going to be the one to destroy that. Your father never noticed, of course. Your sisters might have had inkling, but I think they mistook it as more-- platonic adoration."

Given that his world's foundations had been rocked repeatedly over to past couple of months, Bail probably could have been forgiven for his continued gaping. He blinked once or twice more, then looked back out over the mountains, now colored in twilight, the last of the sun's light gone. His mother had known for the past two years that they were together. Kriff, she knew how Maul felt two years before Bail did!

Bail tried, half-heartedly, to scramble and figure out where he had given it all away, where he had been that obvious, but he gave that up within short order.

"I don't know how to do this," he finally admitted, throat tightening. "How to-- get this to work out so no one gets hurt."

"I wish I knew what to tell you." His mother moved, finally, to sit on the other bench, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. "I'm not going to ask this engagement be broken. Breha will be a good queen, when it comes her time to rule. She was teaching in the Outer Rim before she was called home; she isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty, which is no small thing. I think that if you approach her honestly and with an open heart, you'll work this out."

Bail couldn't imagine doing so; he was by no means the first man to be arranged into a marriage while already having a lover, but it was definitely scandalous for the fact that he and Maul were of the same house. And there were still older elements on Alderaan who had a xenophobia problem, which could compound it, if word became common knowledge. The thought of just coming clean to Breha Antilles meant taking an extraordinary leap of faith on a woman he didn't know, and more, putting his lover's reputation at risk.

But the alternatives were no better. Even if their relationship had been conducted in private, it had never been treated as shameful, and Bail didn't want to start treating it that way now. The effect that would have on Maul would be devastating; he didn't need to try it to know that.

"Okay," Bail breathed out, rubbing over his face, ignoring the faint tremor in his hand. "I guess I better go talk this over with him."

His mother nodded, giving him a soft sort of smile. "Good idea. And good luck."

It wasn't an easy talk, but ultimately, the result was Bail making a decision to _damn the blasters, full speed ahead_ and hope desperately that all of the lives involved in this wouldn't end up shattered.

 

 

 

Not quite a year later, he caught his mother watching them from across the room; watching he and Breha and Maul engaged in somewhat spirited but good-humored conversation about a local zoning project, which would require a hectare of old growth evergreens to be cut down (Maul's passion) for the sake of expanding the local arts school (Breha's passion), with Bail acting as debate moderator.

(Months later, the very minimum of trees had been cut down and the school's addition had been built in segments weaving around the rest, making it a lovely place to visit. Bail had no doubts it was because of a pair of also lovely noses being thrust into the project, even if neither of them had been involved before.)

Mazi's smile suggested she knew all along that it was going to work out.

 

 

 

But the first time that Bail really knew that it was going to be okay -- _really_ okay, not just manageable, not just tolerated, but actually _okay_  -- for himself was the first time he came home and found his wife and lover asleep together on the couch, in their master suite’s sitting room, with a fire most of the way burned down in the fireplace.

Despite the emotional upheaval all around, Breha and Maul had been incredibly kind to one another from pretty much the start. It seemed that they both recognized how badly they could hurt each other over a situation that neither of them had asked for. If Bail hadn’t already had a lover he was devoted to and who was devoted to him, he knew for a fact that he would have fallen head over heels for Breha Antilles from that first meeting; she was sharp, she was beautiful, she had a quick wit and a smile that made his heart jump even while he was scared out of his mind that she was going to take his major breach of protocol and use it against him.

It wasn’t every day you took your lover to the first proper meeting with your future wife, after all.

He remembered the look in her eyes; the realization that clicked into place. The surprise. But then she blinked and greeted Maul by title -- a title literally only a handful of days old by then -- and said, “It looks like we have some things to discuss.”

There was no threat to the words, no anger. Not even any irritation. Just acceptance, graceful. Maybe that was when Bail started to fall for her anyway, just on how level-headed she handled what had likely been quite a shock.

"Oh, Bail," she had explained much later, "you both looked so frightened. What was I going to do, call a gossip columnist? Demand a broken engagement? I wasn't there to hurt either of you; what good would it have done?"

There were people, even on Alderaan, who would have done just that: Made a fuss, demanded that Bail let go of his lover. That Breha had immediately defaulted to the kindest course spoke well of her. It wasn't _easy_ after that, because all of them had a huge emotional stake in it, but her immediate willingness to work things out and to be respectful to Maul was the first plank in that bridge.

"There's no deception in her," Maul had told him, after a month or so of regular meetings. The stress was wearing on him, and Bail would have done everything within his power to alleviate it, but part of charting the kindest course meant there wasn't much more that _could_ be done.

Bail didn't think to question that; given enough exposure, and Maul had an uncanny (doubtless Force-driven) ability to tell when someone was being truthful or lying. By the time he spoke up with a declaration like that, it was because he was absolutely certain, and thus far, he had never been proven wrong.

"I think that I need to step back," Maul finally said, and Bail's heart had hit his boots so fast that it felt like it had turned to stone to do it.

"Are you-- leaving me?" he managed to ask.

Maul blinked once and then shook his head, emphatically. "Never. Not as long as I'm drawing breath. But she's going to be your wife, and she's going to be the mother of your children." He paused and closed his eyes, then took a breath and then regarded Bail again, solemn, though not-- sad, exactly, as he added more gently, "Bail, I know what you look like in love. You're already halfway there with her. I'm--"

"Don't you dare say you're in the way," Bail warned back, not harshly, but definitely not playing around.

"No. I'm saying that she is an honest, good woman who deserves some space with the man she came back to Alderaan to marry." Maul rubbed at his face one-handedly, then crossed his arms; he still looked perfectly serious. "And that you deserve a chance to get to know her. And, if truth be told, _I_  could use some space to sort things out, too."

That was a little better, though Bail still didn't like it. It seemed, to him, that 'some space' could become a lot of it, if Maul decided to sacrifice his place with Bail just to make life easier for the future Viceroy and Queen. And even if Bail fell hard for Breha, losing Maul would be like having something ripped out of him, something irreplaceable, leaving behind an empty space that would not be filled, that would only bleed and bleed.

"Let me get my grades back out of the grave before some upstart comes along to begin kicking dirt over them," Maul said, with a little dry quirk of a grin. "I've had three of my professors corner me in concern the past month and a half. And you-- go finish falling in love. I'll be here when you're ready, I'm not going anywhere."

Bail spent the entire first week of that time achingly lonely. Breha took it in stride. And it helped that Bail would find Maul had sent him notes, here or there; occasionally, a holo of some interesting plant he was studying, or a quick rundown of his resurrected grades. Or sometimes just the simple reassurance, _I miss you, I love you. It'll be all right._

It did turn out for the better. Because even while Bail and Breha spent more time together, learning who each other were, Breha took it upon herself to go and engage Maul, too. He never asked what they talked about, but after three and a half weeks, Maul sent him a note: _You should definitely marry her. She knows how to swear in thirteen different languages. If I were human, I would have been blushing for some of the things she said._

That was one hell of an endorsement. And after that, something had lifted in the air between he and Breha, too. Their times together became lighter, more fun. She seemed more relaxed. Bail was definitely more relaxed.

And he did finish falling in love with her.

Now, well over a year later, he regarded them sleeping there. The evolution of their friendship had been steady; more recently, Bail thought he was starting to see something notably intimate there, as well. There was more casual contact; Breha, especially, was more physically affectionate. They worked together on projects; Bre had gotten a position in the Ministry of Education with an eye on becoming Minister next time appointments came up, and Maul was more than a little passionate about his coursework, so there were times when they would forget Bail existed while they planned new programs to implement, and he loved watching them brainstorm. They ribbed one another, they joked around, and it was just-- good.

It was good.

The quarantine, though--

For the past few months, there were several Core and Mid-Rim worlds and even some as far as the Outer Rim that had been taken over by some kind of sickness which affected midichlorians. Every day, the news had been getting grimmer and grimmer. The Jedi Order was all but decimated and watching the guardians of the Republic fall like that was every manner of horrible; scientists were confused and everyone had been in a panic, though no civilian deaths had resulted yet.

Bail's mother had issued quarantine orders for Alderaan the moment that the outbreak was confirmed. Bail didn't doubt for half a second that Maul was the very first person she thought of when she made that decision; she was the Queen of Alderaan and she was looking out for the entire system, but the swiftness and sheer number of precautions were no doubt provoked by having an adopted child of her House under threat.

Even with the quarantine in place -- for the system, for the planet _and_ for Aldera -- it had been bad for Maul. At the height of it, when the only news coming out of Coruscant was tragedy in bold letters, Bail had found him curled up in the corner of the library, wrecked practically to tears (and kriff, was that rare), and Bail would never forget what Maul's voice sounded like when he said, "It's like feeling all of the stars going out."

The outbreak had started to finally taper off the past few weeks or so, though. Still a lingering threat, but numbers of new cases had dropped drastically, and it seemed like some of the pressure had lifted. University had been on its annual main break and Maul had taken a quarter off thanks to this, so at least that wasn't yet more weight for him to deal with; he wasn't jumping at shadows like he had been for awhile there. Still frayed and pretty clearly exhausted, but-- not quite so bad.

This, however, was something else entirely.

Breha was stretched out between Maul's side and the back of the couch, head pillowed on his chest; Maul, in turn, had both arms around her in a loose hold, one leg off the couch, foot braced on the ground. Aside hugging -- which they did -- it was the closest Bail had ever seen the two of them.

And it was the most peaceful he had seen Maul in months.

It was a bunch of realizations at once: That Maul trusted her enough to sleep in her presence; no small thing. That she enjoyed being that close to him, in turn. That they had, neither of them, needed anyone to push them there; they had found their way to that place themselves. That they weren't doing it for Bail's sake (something he had worried about many times since this started), but for their own.

He smiled a little bit to himself, then sat on the tea table, reaching out to stroke a strand of Bre's hair behind her ear.

"Hey," she whispered, once she'd cracked her eyes open.

"Hey," Bail whispered back, just looking at them, heart aching for how warm he felt. "You want to stay here, or go to bed?"

It was a purely open question; hell, if Bail could have fit his big frame on the couch with them, he would have, but he wouldn't have been the least bit offended to go to bed alone that night and leave them to stay there.

"Bed, I think," Breha answered, closing her eyes and grinning a little. "The same one, though."

"Good plan," Maul added, muzzily, apparently having woken up in time to hear that, though he didn't bother moving but to draw his fingertips up and down the back of Bre's shoulder.

Bail carried them both there, one at a time, and didn't stop smiling the whole way.

 

 

 

“Your offspring will be climbing trees the moment they’re physically capable.”

Breha laughed at that, throwing her head back against the pillow her black hair was fanned out across. "Knowing you, they’ll be ascending in a sling before they are!"

Bail had been listening to Bre and Maul from where he was trying to get through a brief at his desk, and he was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on the work, given the extraordinarily charming pair of people on the bed, relaxing in the sun on a rare day where everyone was home and had little to do but enjoy each other’s company.

Later, he would look back and reflect on this period as one of the very happiest times of his life.

"Likely so,” Maul agreed, voice all low, mellow warmth. He was currently laying with his head level to Breha’s waist, pillowed on his own elbow, socked feet hanging off the end of the bed, stroking her still flat belly with the fingertips of his other hand.

Breha, in the meantime, had been trying to read herself – the awful headaches she had started getting only weeks after conception made that harder to do regularly – but had pretty much abandoned her attempts by now and was just petting on Maul’s head even as he was petting on her belly, looking down at him with a grin playing on her mouth. “Other children will ask for toys, this one will be asking for rock hammers.”

“I’ll save the volcanology for when they’re older, though,” Maul promised, solemnly, before grinning back at her with an edge of mischief, leaning over to press a kiss over where he was absolutely certain Bail’s and Bre’s child was growing in her womb.

Given the Force, Bail didn’t even think to question that. He set aside his datapad and leaned back in his desk chair, just looking at them; the light making Breha’s skin shine gold, the way it glistened against her hair. The way it threw into sharp contrast Maul’s colors; backlit his profile.

Bail was so fortunate. Sometimes it came around on him, just how fortunate he was, and the warm ache that filled his chest was almost more than he could bear.

Breha gave one of Maul’s horns a light tug, raising an eyebrow at him as he nuzzled over her belly, drawing the tip of his nose against her skin, then brushing over the same spot with his lips. “Don’t be a tease, Blackbird,” she said, bending one leg out in open invitation.

Bail had to chew down a laugh at that; that was like asking the world to stop turning, the sun to stop rising. Of course, Bre knew that too; while it had taken her and Maul an entire year and a half of building a relationship for it to go from friendship to intimate affection to genuinely sexual, Breha had never made any secret of the fact that she liked watching him and Bail; it had taken some time for Maul to relax around her early on, but once he did he went right back to tormenting Bail at every given opportunity.

Then again, Maul’s dynamic with Breha was different. He wasn’t exactly outright  _subservient_ to her in bed, but– very deferential. If she didn’t say anything, he did what he wanted for the most part; the moment she expressed a desire or a preference or outright told him to do something, though, he almost always bowed gracefully to it without a moment’s hesitation.

Admittedly, he still did so in his own characteristic way.

“My lady, I would never tease you,” he said now, all courtly manners, leaning his weight on one elbow just to slide the black tips of his fingers under the waistline of her satin underwear, gliding them between skin and elastic, back and forth. “I give you only promises, if– occasionally deferred.”

If Bail’s answer to Maul’s mischief was to get him back by patiently taking him apart at some later point until he was begging, Breha’s was that of a huntress. She could be patient, but when she decided to execute a take-down, gods help whoever was on the other end of it.

Today, however, she was apparently willing to indulge her prey. Or maybe just toy with him for awhile _before_ going in for the metaphorical kill.

“Are you implying that it would be worth the wait, my lord?” she asked back, loftily, tone completely at odds with the flash of amusement in her eyes.

“I am not implying it.” Maul tugged that satin down a couple of centimeters and leaned over, speaking against her newly exposed hip, voice gone just that bit husky as his lips brushed her skin: “I’m outright _stating_ it.”

Bre’s shiver was gratifying just to watch; Bail imagined it was even moreso to feel it from Maul’s vantage. He wasn’t sure what he wanted more: To sit here and torture himself by watching, or to go and participate. Both had an appeal.

Breha allowed it, and then the corner of her mouth crept up; she got a hold of the horn she had tugged earlier and used it to push Maul’s head back, making eye contact just so she could say,  _"Show me.”_

And Maul did.

Repeatedly.

 

 

 

The next time that they were arranged like that, there was no laughter. The air felt heavy, even with the sun shining.

Miscarriages happened. The doctor had said that they happened and that it wasn’t indicative of anything. She had only been two months along, and that was not unnatural. Nothing at all precluded them trying again; they could find no reason why the miscarriage had happened, but sometimes these things did and there wasn’t anything to be done about it.

It hurt, though. It _hurt_.

They got past it because despite the grief, for this wanted and lost child, they loved each other. They managed to find their way back to happiness, even if it was a happiness made harder by new loss, new wisdom. They didn’t allow it to drive them apart, from their hard-won, worked-for comfort together.

But the second pregnancy, which should have been a cause for elation and hope, left all three of them on edge. There _was_ joy in it. This child, like the one before, was _wanted_. Was going to be loved. Was going to have two biological parents and a slightly eccentric might-as-well-be-a-parent to love them, protect them, never mind a large extended family. But the joy was tentative and they knew that the pain was possible now, they knew how to flinch.

Bail had stayed home. He worked from home. He didn’t even leave Aldera, let alone Alderaan. Maul was the same way; he had just graduated not long before Breha became pregnant for the second time -- and that had been a moment of high celebration for House Organa, which ended in a long weekend where he, Bail and Bre disappeared to a mountain lodge rental where they only got dressed all of three times the entire long weekend, and spent many pleasurable hours stretched out in front of a great room’s huge fireplace -- and he could have been off on any number of research projects he had been offered a part in, but instead, he waited.

Bail was trying to go through some contract paperwork for the family’s vineyard on his desk, but like always, he kept finding his attention drawn back to his dearest loves. Once again, Maul was just petting on Breha’s belly, but there was no mischief there; once again, she was just petting on his head, but there was no bantering.

Instead, there was just the feel of them waiting, all three. The grief and the hope.

Love and fear.

Bail set aside his datapad and headed over there to cuddle up with them, as if he could just wrap himself around all of them, including their unborn child, and hold them together with the strength of his arms and the force of his love.

It turned out that he couldn’t.

 

 

 

When Bail made it back in, disheveled and frantic, the ship barely on the ground and the gangway not even touching the landing platform before he rocketed off of it, it was with the full understanding of what it felt like to _need_ to scream. He was not given to outward displays of wild temperament, at least not outside of his innermost sanctuaries, so he didn’t scream there, but later on that night when his wife and his lover were asleep, he would find himself in a little used pantry in the palace only to fall down against the wall and shatter into a thousand pieces.

Breha always seemed the embodiment of quiet strength; the manifestation of quickfire intelligence and deeply held principles and _courage_. So incredibly much courage. Seeing her with her face wet with tears, curled up in Maul’s arms with her forehead tucked into his neck was wrenching; that anything in all the galaxy could hurt her so badly, could strip away her defenses, was a manner of terrifying. Even the first time, she had mourned, but this--

This was different.

They both looked up at him, a portrait of crushing loss and aching relief for his return.

He didn’t say anything -- even _I’m sorry_  seemed poor sentiment for this -- just crawled up on the bed with them and wrapped around the both of them and wished he could do anything to fix this. Anything to make this right.

 

 

 

Bre was a ghost for awhile after that. Once she had dried her tears, she didn’t openly shed any more, but she was constantly distracted. Sometimes, her hand fluttered down to her belly, as if she could feel out what had gone wrong, or as if she could will a presence that should have been there back. Bail doubted she even realized she did that, and his chest hurt every single time he saw it.

He tried to deal with his own grief quietly; he felt oafish and clumsy like he hadn’t since his late teens, like he could stumble at any given minute and destroy something. Still, he formed half of a living shield for her at night, cuddling up to one side of her while Maul took the other, and he did his best to take as much as he could off of her plate. She was Minister of Education now; whenever Bail could, he helped with the office work that she didn’t normally delegate to her staff, and otherwise felt incredibly helpless.

Of all of them, Maul seemed the most solid. Quiet, worried, but steady. He was the reason why Bail would be trying to work and would find a fresh mug of tea on the table and his brandy put away; Bail was pretty sure Maul was the only reason he or Breha ate anything, too, mostly because they loved him too much to ignore it when he brought them something from the kitchen. He didn’t say much -- that wasn’t a surprise -- but he was a constant shadow to both of them. A blanket around the shoulders. A kiss on the head. A thousand little kind gestures.

It was about two months before Mazi cornered Bail; both Houses, staff and family, had been very careful with he and Bre, respecting their grief, and only now was it starting to break somewhat back to what passed for normal. Bail attended his mother, sitting down beside her on one of the palace's observation decks, and leaned into her a little bit for support when she wrapped one arm through his.

"Your Blackbird is over on the estate today, ostensibly tending to his plants," she said, without preamble, reaching across herself to rub up and down his upper arm. "I think you need to go and see to him."

Bail's heart dropped in sudden worry. "Why? Is he okay?"

The look his mother gave him suggested that he should probably already know the answer to that, and in all fairness, Bail kind of _did_ , but he had been so-- distracted and disengaged lately that he found himself immediately unsure. Then Mazi's eyes softened and she squeezed his arm with both of hers. "I think," she said carefully, "that everyone in this city knows that you and Bre lost something. But very few know that Maul did, as well. And I don't think anyone's given the boy permission to fall apart, and so he hasn't."

Bail felt his eyes slide closed, chest aching. _"Kriff,"_ he swore, throat tight. "Okay. Okay. Let me go and--"

He wasn't even sure how to finish that sentence. Fix things? Pull his head out of his own ass?

"Bail," his mother said, sternly, tightening her grip on his arm when he went to get up and pinning him with both that and a look. "The last thing anyone needs -- including him -- is you beating yourself up. You haven't done anything wrong. Just go and be there, as you've always been, and put your arms around him, as you've always done, and give him a safe harbor to grieve in."

Bail stared back at her, trying to slot all of that into his frantically running mind; after a moment, he nodded. Even if he didn't necessarily agree with that assessment, he wanted to at least go and follow through on the suggestion, and as quickly as he could.

He could tell his mother wasn't wholly convinced, but she didn't say anything more; didn't try to stop him from lighting out of there, comming Bre on the way.

 

 

 

Honestly, Bail didn't know what he expected to find.

Somehow, he was still surprised to find Maul curled up napping on his old bed, booted feet off the side, as if he'd just laid down on a whim for a moment to rest his head and had dozed off.

The fact that there weren't any plants in this room to tend wasn't lost on Bail. Or that the last time they had slept in this bed together had been years ago, when things seemed much simpler.

It was while Bail was standing there, heart having made its way into his throat from where it felt like it had been in his boots, that he realized he couldn't remember the last time Maul had dressed up, or painted his horns, or did any of those little quirky things that he had always done because he knew Bail and Bre liked to look (and lust) after him. Even at his graduation ceremony, after the years of university study that culminated in his doctorate with honors, Maul had worn the sedate blue and silver of House Organa, instead of any of his more eye-catching, flashy ensembles, the kinds he usually wore to bait his lovers or draw their attention.

Bail couldn't remember the last time they just held one another; not the shielding kind, where they wrapped around themselves and Bre trying to keep things intact, but the kind where they did so purely for the pleasure of the intimacy, the closeness.

Or the last time Bail had just reached for him, for no reason at all except to do so.

The worst part was that Bail knew Maul never grudged it.

That he had never once tucked around his own ribs the way he was now and thought bitter thoughts at them. Or sat there feeling resentful because Bail hadn't thought to make space in his mind to wonder how Maul was coping with all of this; had only assumed that because his lover appeared steady, that must have meant he was handling things well enough. It never would have even crossed Maul's mind, to feel hard-done-by, even when it rightfully should have.

Bail tried to wrack his mind to remember if Maul had done anything to try to get back some of the care he'd been layering on Bail and Bre the past few months, and found nothing there. Just his lover, quiet and attentive. Their shadow, trying to heal them, or at least protect them from being hurt worse.

 _This was never what you were here for,_ Bail thought, miserably, trying to imagine how incredibly _lonely_ that had to have been.

After another moment or two, trying to calm his heartache enough to think clearly, he just went over and laid down himself. Peered across the short span between himself and his lover, a gulf that felt wider than it ever had since they had kissed that first time, and tried to figure out how to fix things. He knew what his mother said, but confronted with the reality of it all, all Bail could really see were all of the ways that he was going to end up causing more suffering.

That was why it was Bre, who set things more right; why it was Bre who came in and handled Maul's half-panic at being caught out vulnerable. She was the one who held his gaze with his face cradled between her hands; she was the one who managed to disarm his desperation and anxiety enough to remind him of something they should have never allowed him to forget, for even a moment.

"She was yours, too," Bre said, voice steady despite the well of tears in her eyes. "You're allowed to feel it."

"I'm sorry, Bre," Maul answered, voice so jagged that it hurt just to hear it, and then shattered.

And it was Bre who held him through it, stroking his back as he sobbed hard enough it shook his whole frame, while she looked at Bail beyond with a silent question in her eyes.

 

 

 

Five months later, and Bail hadn't apparently learned his lesson.

Five months later, in a hollowed out building, it was Maul who was paying for it.

Five months and three days later, it was Bail who got to see the harrowed, heartsick looks on his mother's face and on Bre's when he brought their Blackbird home, tenuously alive only because of the Jedi he also brought.

At least this time, when they looked at him with a silent question in their eyes, he knew the answer.

 

 

 

Surrounded in the white and pale blue of the palace's medical wing, Maul looked rather fragile.

Only half-deceptive, Bail knew. He had met few people equal to his lover in strength. But he also remembered why their lives and relationships together had been handled with such care, too.

Scrubbed clean of the bacta he had been in for the past week, healing skin and muscle and bone, Maul's skin was again as warm as it should have been; aside the monitor leads, he was otherwise unencumbered and just sleeping off the long-term sedation. In the past week, Bail had not been idle; he had, with no small amount of his own anxiety, asked for a recommendation to a therapist. In between then, he talked with his wife, haltingly trying to open himself back up to her, and when he wasn't doing that, he was doing what he could to take care of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was such an ill-fit for palace life that in another lifetime, Bail might have given up and let the man go.

"You should at least stay until Maul's awake," he had said, as Obi-Wan had regarded him with guarded eyes, tense and uncomfortable, though he was quite polite to everyone despite it.

"And after that?"

Bail gave him a thin smile. "Your choice, then."

Obi-Wan had stayed, which was a start.

But for now, the most important thing that Bail had to right was the simplest one. And also the hardest.

He sat and waited while his lover woke slowly, groggy and a bit disoriented; sat and just stroked up and down Maul's forearm, and felt a dozen cracks in his own heart when Maul reached up with his other hand to cover the spot where his second heart had once beat, confused and understandably frightened. The replacement was the finest that could be gotten, engineered right here in Aldera and customized to work with the half-zabrak's physiology, but it had no noticeable beat of its own despite pulsing internally; still, given another week and some careful movement, and the adaptive technology would learn and adjust itself otherwise.

When Maul looked at him, there wasn't any of the anger Bail had wanted to see before. Just anxiety and confusion and a bedrock under that of devotion that ran bone-deep, soul-deep. And Bail was more relieved than there were any words to describe, that his lover still trusted him enough to look to him, to explain or to comfort.

So, he took a breath. Offered a smile through his tears. Crawled up on the bed and pulled Maul into his arms and held him close while he explained what had happened. What had almost happened. What he was doing now, and why; how things were going to go forward, so that they could all heal, not only from this but from what had gone before this.

"I love you," he said, at the end, after a period of nothing but quiet closeness and silent tears. "I'm sorry."

They fell asleep like that, stirring only when Bre joined them, until they were all three tangled together on a too-small bed.

But this time, all three home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan gets to make the acquaintance of the nobleman he saved the life of, and finds his plans getting steadily more nebulous.

There were parts of the palace in Aldera that reminded Obi-Wan strongly of the Jedi Temple he had not been back to for years.

That didn't help his discomfort any; to the contrary, it just made him homesick.

He wasn't entirely sure why he had allowed Bail Organa to talk him into coming to Alderaan. Obi-Wan had been in the Outer Rim now for years, trying to find any trace of his former Master, chasing down hints and rumors first of anyone who fit Qui-Gon's appearance, and then of any surviving Jedi at all. Nearly every time, he had ended up disappointed; had found little for his efforts but a lonely universe.

He knew that there were likely Force sensitive children being born. But three whole generations -- at least -- of Jedi had been wiped out over the course of only months. Cut off from the Force, the Order had broken down slowly and painfully. The windows in the towers had to be sealed so that there would be no more Jedi throwing themselves out; it happened far too often. Of those who didn't choose to rejoin the Force in that manner, some just disappeared like ghosts; vanished into the streets of Coruscant to disperse into the galaxy. Younglings were reclaimed by families, or fostered to other families. Padawans usually stayed with their masters.

And of those Obi-Wan knew remained on Coruscant, they were Forceblind and mostly heartbroken, trying to figure out what had happened and why, and how to reverse it.

He had run into Quinlan a year before; one of the only Jedi he had found who had managed to make a genuine life for himself after. The Kiffar looked a little haunted, looked a little worn, but he had a wife and a newborn daughter, and he had opened his doors and arms to Obi-Wan without hesitation, even after finding out that Obi-Wan had not been infected.

Obi-Wan stayed a couple of weeks, but then he had moved on again. It ultimately had hurt them both too much, to try to be who they once were.

Force sensitives were _born_ that way; even untrained, even when their abilities remained latent, being born sensitive to the Force meant they were physiologically changed for that connection. Wired just that bit differently from those who didn't share that same sensitivity. Obi-Wan could not remember a time in his life where he couldn't feel it; could not imagine the _pain_  that the others felt, when they lost that. Even now, the thought made him shiver.

When he had felt the powerful signature on that war-torn landscape, halfway across a city, his heart had soared. The last time he had felt such was before the decimation of the Order, and it was with hope singing in his very bones that he made for it, instinctively dodging hot areas of the city where pockets of fighters remained. As he drew nearer, he started to differentiate it a bit more; it was a bright signature, as bright as a Jedi's, but-- rough. Unpolished.

Untamed.

And when it flared with distress, an outward projection that only someone with native Force talents in telepathy or empathy could manage, Obi-Wan had flung himself with more speed towards it, heart aching sharply in response.

What he found was a zabrak with the wildest coloration he had ever seen, all red and black, being held by a man who dwarfed him in size, begging him not to die.

Obi-Wan had never been strong in the healing arts. He was very tuned to the Unifying Force; he could sense another Force user from kilometers away, and back before the disaster, he could even sink himself deep enough in meditation to feel them across parsecs and parsecs. He had been more gifted in premonition; in feeling the broader, wider currents, the universal flow. But healing was a discipline very tied to the Living Force; to the moment, to the ground, to the immediate.

But twice before, he had tried to save someone by simultaneously dumping as much healing into them as he was capable of, while trying to tether them with his very will and spirit.

They had both been Jedi. They had both given up, at different times, on different worlds. And Obi-Wan had failed to save either, left only to feel them die.

He still didn't hesitate to try it this third time, but instead of being a shattered Jedi ready to quit, the zabrak snagged onto him with fading mental fingertips and for a moment, Obi-Wan was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of  _love_ that he almost missed the wordless plea that only later would he be able to make sense of.

It was breathtaking. It was heartbreaking.

If pure feeling could be translated to words, Obi-Wan knew now what those words would have been.

_Take care of Bail._

 

 

 

Obi-Wan's evolution of understanding the interpersonal dynamics of the royal family came in fits and starts. They were incredibly gracious people, though; they seemed to have none of the snobbery and pretentiousness that often plagued those born into privilege. Obi-Wan remembered vaguely that there had been some fight over the crown, but it was around the same time his Master had disappeared on a mission to negotiate the blockade of Naboo, and Obi-Wan's life quickly became a futile search. His knighthood came and passed as a quiet, lonely affair, and it was Master Yoda who had cut his braid for him.

Even for as gracious as the members of House Organa were, though, Obi-Wan found himself restlessly wandering the palace. He had agreed to stay around long enough to see Lord Maul awake, but after that, he thought it likely he would go and find himself somewhere he fit better. Even if only for a few days, before going back to chasing ghosts and shadows. As tempting as the thought was, to just-- _interact_ with another strong Force sensitive, as tempting as it was to _teach_ and perhaps save a few arts from being lost, it was likely enough to be a fool's errand in the end.

(When he was being honest with himself, he could pretend it was only that and not the fear of becoming fond of people again.)

Despite his efforts to keep mostly to himself, he still found himself-- drawn in, a little. Just a little. His own training in diplomacy was deep enough that he would not turn down a queen's invitation to dinner; when he did his best to clean his battered clothing, expecting something formal, he was reluctantly and pleasantly surprised when they shared it in her sitting room, using the tea table. And the food was _good_ , too; he was somewhat shocked to find he had been cooked for by a monarch and a prince.

The next time came from Princess Breha; after thanking him sincerely for saving Lord Maul for a third or fourth time (the only indicator of how hard the event had been on her; otherwise, she was very composed), she asked if he would mind going with her to a presentation on history at one of Aldera's primary schools, since everyone else was busy. Obi-Wan didn't really _want_  to, but it would be incredibly rude to turn her down, and so he had gone and found the chattering questions of children to be both aching and soothing at once.

He had figured out a few things: Queen Mazicia was incredibly sharp. Her eyes took in everything and everyone. When she looked at Obi-Wan, there was a softness there which bothered him on some level; as if she could see how wretched he often felt and more, _understood_  it. He doubted much happened in her system that slipped by her notice. When her eyes lit on her children, there was a great deal of love there; when called upon to conduct royal business, she could go from disarmingly charming to ice cold in a moment, if someone displeased her.

Thus, he wondered how she had come to accept the fact that the prince and princess were sleeping with a lord of their own house.

That had been something of a private brain-bender, when he put it all together. It also explained a great deal. Before, he had been thinking more along the lines of siblings, but it wasn't until he lit on the thought that they were actually lovers that the full range of behaviors and emotions made sense.

The queen was sharp. As was Princess Breha, despite her being shaken by nearly losing a lover. Bail was more of a mess; he seemed almost manic at times, and in others subdued and despondent. Not dissimilar from how he had been in that hospital before; it didn't take a mind healer to see the man was rattled by the experience. But as the days progressed, it appeared he was getting things together; he slowly calmed down and while he was still often subdued and sad, Obi-Wan was charmed by the man he could see beyond those things despite his efforts to remain disengaged. The love Bail had for his wife and for Maul shone on him like a star when he spoke of them; it was such a pure, unfettered, open-hearted feeling that it radiated.

It was hard not to at least like a man who felt so strongly, so cleanly, for those he was committed to.

Through it all, Obi-Wan never lost track of Lord Maul, his unlikely rescue; it took going out practically to the other side of Aldera before Obi-Wan couldn't feel him there without even _trying_. Still in sleep and floating in a bacta tank, but a powerful presence, especially in this galaxy gone so dark. In the galaxy before, Obi-Wan wouldn't have been able to feel him there, in that state; the presence of so much vivid life would have drowned him out. He would have been another speck of light in a wide river of it, and not a lighthouse on a dark, opposite shore the way he was now.

As such, Obi-Wan could also feel it when Maul woke up, too, though it wasn't until the following day that he went to visit.

"So, we meet again," he tried to joke, like a cheap holo villain, after standing there for a long several moments while they stared at one another.

Maul blinked back at him once, then gave what looked to be a slightly sheepish smile. "Master Jedi. Forgive my impertinence."

Obi-Wan looked down at his ratty tunic -- quite a contrast to the simple but obviously _not cheap_ robe the zabrak was wearing over his sleep clothes -- then offered back a similar grin. "It's all right, I'm clearly out of place."

"No, it wasn't that," Maul answered, gesturing a little towards Obi-Wan. "You're-- different. _Bright._  I'm told you're the reason I'm here to see it, so thank you."

If not for the fact that Obi-Wan was talking to a nobleman -- clearly by adoption, but nonetheless -- he would have found more surprise for the zabrak's voice, low and soft, contrast to what looked like genuinely feral markings that would probably be terrifying to behold in some contexts. Despite being Alderaanian, Maul's accent wasn't; it was a high-bred inner core accent, but not one belonging to this world. Altogether, as a whole package, he was-- unexpected.

"I was glad to do it, Lord Maul." Obi-Wan gave a half-bow, giving a genuine smile. "But I'm not the only reason. I may have anchored you, but you were the one who held on. No small feat."

"I don't remember much." Maul flicked his fingers in the direction of his head. "I remember feeling something and moving, and then pain, and I remember Bail holding onto me. And I remember you, just for a moment. But after that..." he trailed off, then shook his head. "Just Maul is fine."

"Then I'll have to insist on just being Obi-Wan."

"Obi-Wan." Tired and frayed as he looked -- and felt -- Maul's smile back was just as genuine. "Fair enough. How have you been faring? My family's treating you well?"

"I'm all right. And they've been very kind." Maul's question had suggested he knew the answer to that already, but he still nodded back for Obi-Wan's response. "I was told I should wait to see you, before I go, and so I have."

"Where are you going after this?" Maul took a moment to sling off the quilt -- out of place in the infirmary, all bright colors and clearly old -- he had been under and levered his legs off the side of the bed. Obi-Wan almost went to ask if he should even be getting up yet, given what he had been through, but instead held his peace for the moment.

"I'm not certain," he admitted, hovering a little closer. "Perhaps back out to the Outer Rim."

Maul nodded, resting his black and red feet to the floor. For a moment, he pressed his right hand to his chest; the ache of confusion and uncertainty and half a dozen more subtle shades of feeling hit Obi-Wan hard enough that he winced himself, a ghost of the anxiety and sense of loss Maul was feeling echoing in his own chest.

Then it vanished, just as startlingly, and Maul was looking at him in clear apology. "I'm sorry, it's been a long time since I've had to shield myself."

Obi-Wan gaped. Shielding wasn't a _basic_ instinctive action; someone had to learn how to do it, and even then, it took practice and effort to be able to do so that completely. "Who taught you that?" he asked, just barely keeping it from being a demand.

Maul was eying him with a mild amount of wariness. "Someone in another life. It doesn't matter, he's long dead."

It clearly did matter, if Obi-Wan was reading Maul's tone of voice right; still, the addition of yet another mystery had Obi-Wan on edge. "Was he a Jedi?"

"No. I don't know what he was, ultimately." Maul finally pushed up to his feet, slowly and carefully, and then stood for a long moment with his eyes closed. He wavered a little in place like he was dizzy, then painstakingly straightened up his robe. "If it's all the same, Obi-Wan, I'd rather not discuss it."

The words were kind, but firm. Obi-Wan wasn't known for _letting things go_ , but after a moment of just taking in Maul's expression, he pressed his mouth into a line and gave a bow of his head before asking, "Are you supposed to be up?"

"Actually, yes. I've just been putting it off." Maul gave a little huff of a laugh, then a rueful half-smile. "Still, I'd like to sleep in my own bed tonight, and idling won't see that happen."

"Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"No, not at all."

It was partly concern that Maul would end up off of his feet; despite bacta and what was clearly state-of-the-art medical care, one didn't lose a heart and quite nearly their life without being knocked off-kilter. He was moving with great care, as if he wasn't any more sure he could walk than Obi-Wan was, and despite the black markings and mask making it a little harder to read, his expression was one of someone a little lost.

"You don't have to worry about shielding yourself so tightly," Obi-Wan said, folding his hands into the sleeves of his tunic, falling into pace with Maul. "I can filter you out, if it becomes distracting."

Maul nodded back, but remained just as closed off. After he was more confident on his feet, his shoulders squared some and he loosely crossed his arms, though he still seemed to be struggling quietly, internally. After a moment, he gave that same half-smile as before, lopsided and sad. "I'm sorry, I'm not being much of a conversationalist. It isn't you, though."

"You apologize an awful lot," Obi-Wan said back, without thinking. "I assure you, it isn't necessary," he added, at the knitted brow he got back. "What else can you do? Beyond shielding."

Maul eyed him another moment, then went back to walking, tucking his arms a little tighter against his chest. "I used to be able to-- summon things. Pull them to me. I haven't been able to do that in years, though." He dropped his head, watching the floor. "I can feel things. Danger. When someone's being truthful, if I'm around them long enough. I can feel other things from them, too, occasionally; I'm not sure how that works. How to-- make it turn on or turn off." He gave another huff, shaking his head.

Obi-Wan waited to see if there was anything more, but Maul didn't continue, nor did he explain his headshake. There was some temptation there to try to pry Maul's history out of him, because one didn't tend to just _forget_ Force skills they learned, but Obi-Wan held his tongue for now. Perhaps later, when Maul was a little more steady and sure. Trying to get it now would border cruel.

"What do you know of the Force?" he asked, instead.

Maul gave a vague shrug. "As much as I could research. But your former Order kept most information locked down, so it wasn't much."

There wasn't any bitterness to the words; they were merely stated as fact. Obi-Wan still felt a little shot of defensiveness, but he kept it to himself. "Different Force users have different-- I suppose the word would be _inclinations_ ," he explained, working out as he went how to word things. "Some tend to be more physical, some more spiritual. Some feel a very broad and distant focus, while others tend to be most comfortable grounded. And aside those inclinations, there are different powers, as well; some which are rather closely tied to said inclinations."

Maul had looked over again, and was watching him quietly, intently. For some reason, that made Obi-Wan want to smile.

"I don't know much about your particular set of talents, but you're at the very least empathic. Perhaps even telepathic, with training." Most Force sensitives had some low-level form of empathy, usually a passive form. Being able to sense others. But comparatively few could do what seemed to come to Maul naturally, at least not without extensive training; not only being able to sense others, but also to project outwards. A more focused, precise form of it was related to giving someone a Force suggestion. "That was how I knew you were in trouble; it was rather like you fired a signal flare at my brain," Obi-Wan joked, just to lighten the atmosphere, tapping the side of his own head in illustration.

Maul scoffed at him, good-humored. "I _would_ apologize, but-- in that case, it would be insincere."

"I wouldn't accept it anyway."

"Still, I hadn't meant to. Of that much, I'm sure."

Obi-Wan nodded; he didn't think that would have been the case. It was still quite a power to have, though; almost without meaning to, he wondered what Maul could do with it, if it was honed properly.

If he could find what Obi-Wan had lost. If he could draw others, who were looking to be found.

It was a selfish thought, and Obi-Wan shoved it aside; he hadn't saved Maul's life just to make use of his talents. But less selfishly, it was still something which should be more controlled beyond basic shielding, no matter how good that shielding was. Obi-Wan was already kicking himself as his departure date started to dissolve swiftly, when he offered, "I could teach you some things, before I go. How to pull objects to you again. How to push them, if you don't already know how."

"How to heal others?" Maul asked back, a little guarded, and Obi-Wan startled internally at having that asked of him so directly. He wondered if Bail had said anything about their conversation in the hospital.

"Maybe." Healing, too, was a function related to empathy. "That's a fairly serious discipline, and it's definitely not one of my own strengths, but I could show you what I know."

Maul nodded, pensively, then looked back out ahead. "I'd appreciate that."

 

 

 

It didn't take long for Obi-Wan to see how deeply wounded this family was. Nor did it take him long to see their determination to heal.

What he didn't expect was to be dragged towards it like the undertow of a tide, pulling his feet from beneath of him and drawing him towards them.

"I already know," he had said, rather bluntly, when Princess Breha ran into Maul in the corridor near their suite and quite clearly wanted to reach out to him. "I've no interest in causing any problems," he added, when they both looked at him like he was being uncouth, holding his hands up in silent apology for his lack of tact.

Breha had snorted at him, but it was a warm sound, and then she looked back up at Maul, resting her hand over his chest with her mouth pressed into a line, her mourning written on her lips. And Obi-Wan made himself more scarce when Maul leaned into her a little, kissing her in front of her ear and murmuring back, "I'll be all right, Bre."

He had slipped away, taking his leave to allow the lovers to reunite in their own space -- though he knew they had already done so in the infirmary -- and then he retreated to his guest suite nearby, trying to come to grips with the fact that he was going to stay longer than he had intended to. He didn't know how long, yet, but it was certainly going to be more than a few days, which meant he was going to need some manner of clothing beyond his own worn tunics--

And that was when he found that he was already being accommodated.

He had been sending his laundry with the palace staff for over a week since he had arrived here; he only had three changes of clothes, and he was grateful he got back each set every evening. But this time, when he came in, he found three new tunics folded alongside of his old ones. New leggings. New undershirts. All of them painstakingly dyed to match the originals, as well; it was only when he picked them up that he felt the difference in the _fineness_ of the fabric, clearly of high quality.

Besides those, there were trousers that looked close to the right size. A small pile of plain t-shirts; black, white, blue, gray. And a few button-downs, likewise plain, though again made of rather fine material.

A note on top said: _Obi-Wan; if these need adjustments, just send for the tailor. We tried to get them as close as we could, but they might need tweaking. -Bail_

Despite the fact that he had just been reflecting on needing clothes, having that need anticipated and provided for like that affronted him somewhat. He quite pointedly pulled on his own battered clothes the next morning before going out.

"I don't want paid for saving your life," he told Maul, who had arrived at his door to ask if he wanted to share breakfast and tea.

The look the zabrak gave him was so oddly gentle that it made Obi-Wan feel like a youngling, suddenly uncertain and small. "They're clothes, Obi-Wan. Not payment." There was a beat, and then he shook his head. "You're-- not meeting us at our best, I'm afraid. Things have been difficult for awhile. But I think that if you get a chance to see us as we're trying to recover enough to be, you'll understand."

Obi-Wan didn’t have the first idea of how to reply to that; the words, earnest and sweet, or the way they made him feel as if he was some wild animal ready to lash out at what seemed to be a simple act of generosity and kindness.

"Have breakfast with me. I grew the tea the palace uses myself," Maul said, nodding towards the door, brows up.

Feeling sore and off-balanced, Obi-Wan could only nod, tucking his arms around himself a little bit as he followed Maul out.

Qui-Gon had grown tea, too.

 

 

 

Obi-Wan had already started to suspect he was dealing with someone who was strong in the Living Force, but the sheer adoration Maul showed the plants in the small arboretum where they had breakfast clinched it. When Obi-Wan made the debatable choice to ask after some particularly pretty blue flowers growing there, Maul launched into a complete lecture on their origins, their relations to other plants, their pollination cycles, what they were used for -- dyeing, it turned out, for artisan weavers -- and then he snipped a couple of them off with the pruning sheers and gave them over to Obi-Wan, who had no idea what to do with them, and thus ended up just sticking them behind his ear.

He had no real urge to learn about the botany of Alderaan, but the bright _joy_ Maul took in showing off his work and his world was infectious. Completely outwith Obi-Wan's intentions, he found himself grinning back through half of it, not because of the lecture, but because it was hard not to bask in the feelings being projected outwards, since Maul apparently wasn't holding onto such tight shielding. Enthusiasm. More earnestness. Pride. Love and connection.

The last time Obi-Wan had been near feelings like that, it was in a long-ago visit to the Temple's classrooms, and all of the _life_ that flowed off of the younglings there washed over him, concentrated for so many small, joyous people in one place.

When he came back out of that thought, he found he must have been quite transparent, because Maul had gone quiet and was just regarding him in reflected sorrow.

"I'm all right," he said, not sure where the desire to reassure came from, but finding no harm in heeding it. "I just-- missed this, I suppose."

"It was terrible. What happened to your Order." Maul poured Obi-Wan some more tea, then himself, before setting the pot aside and resting his black fingertips light around his cup. "For all of the contradictory things I've heard about Jedi--" He cut himself off with a shake of his head, then finished, "No one deserved that."

There was some temptation to ask what Maul had heard that was contradictory, but Obi-Wan was already figuring out that teasing the story out of Maul was going to be a delicate process and definitely not one to rush at. And despite the aura of mystery surrounding this unlikely zabrak, who couldn't summon an object but could shield and hide his own Force signature with the power of a master, Obi-Wan didn't like the idea of possibly causing him suffering in the process.

He heaved his own breath, feeling sore, though not angry. "Sometimes I don't know whether I'm lucky or not. If I should feel guilty for-- being elsewhere, when it happened."

Maul nodded. "I don't think so. I mean, I do understand feeling like you should be, but if there is a will to the Force, then I imagine you were meant to retain your power."

"Perhaps," Obi-Wan allowed, but didn't feel it. He forced a bit of a smile and stood, taking a couple more sips of the truly excellent tea, and then setting the cup down. "Thank you for the lessons," he said, the smile going a little more real as he gestured at the flowers in his hair. "And the decorations."

Maul stood as well; again, he had to pause and close his eyes, and Obi-Wan almost reached out to take him by the arm to steady him. But after a moment's adjustment, he nodded back, courtly in his manners. "Thank you for joining me. It was my pleasure, truly."

Obi-Wan turned to go, then paused and turned back. "When did you want to start learning?"

"I'm always up for learning," Maul answered, with a dry chuckle. "But I suppose I should ask our doctor when I'll be _allowed_ to."

"All right. Do let me know."

The answer turned out to be 'in a few more days', which didn't surprise Obi-Wan overly much; while there was plenty to teach that wasn't physical, there was little point debating with a physician over it. In the meantime, he failed to dodge the invitations to meals and the occasional invitation for a walk, or a tour. Failed to turn down Breha asking if he wanted to go and walk the end-of-summer market with her; failed to turn down Bail asking if he wanted to go visit the family's vineyard. And failed to turn Maul down, and thus learned every single path in the royal gardens over the course of that few days, watching and perhaps hovering a little bit as Maul adapted to living with one artificial heart.

By the third day, Obi-Wan put on his new clothes and tried not to feel how right the fresh, clean tunic was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to B_Radley and Shadowmaat, who beta-read and cheered me on this chapter. <3

The weather turned cold, as Alderaan settled down into autumn properly. Days were still fine enough, in this ancient hollow below the snow line of the surrounding mountains, but the nights took on a sharp chill and while Obi-Wan had found the existence of fireplaces in Aldera's palace to be archaic if charming before, he came to appreciate lighting the one in his suite and sitting by it as the winds outside blustered in the dark hours.

He had not quite made peace with being here, but kicking back against the offered comfort seemed more and more pointless, for as long as it lasted. His life had been austere for the whole of it once he left the creche, and it had only gotten moreso when he was cast adrift in the catastrophe that decimated his Order. Now, he no longer even had a Temple to return to, not really, let alone an Order to answer to. And no one here would congratulate him for turning down their hospitality and kindness; they would accept it, he was sure, but he wouldn't feel any better for it and neither would they.

So, he sat and drank tea at night, the tea Lord Maul had grown over the warm seasons, and he watched the fireplace as he tried to figure out what to _do_.

 

 

 

Lessons were slow, but it wasn't for Maul being less than an excellent student. He was keen and when Obi-Wan was explaining things, he listened quite attentively, leaned forward and blinking rarely enough that Obi-Wan occasionally felt pinned by his gaze. When he had questions, he asked them, and when he was given something to do, he gave it his best effort. But when it came time to practice those lessons in a practical manner, it became difficult; for someone who seemed so attuned to the Living Force, Maul struggled with the necessary _serenity_. Obi-Wan would have thought that it would have come easily to the zabrak, especially given his affinity for plants and nature; that it would be much like it was for Qui-Gon, who had been most at home and centered amongst growing things. Even after the weather turned cold, they had the arboretums and small garden rooms in the palace to retreat to for such things, but even there, Maul couldn't settle.

Instead of being a calm river, Maul was all rapids and rocks and motion; even during those seemingly even stretches, there were currents running under the surface. He didn't ever appear angry, but there were plenty of times when his attempts at meditation fell apart into turmoil before he snapped his shields back into place and hid whatever negative feelings were running through him. He was much less apt to shield his happiness, but even that wasn't the calm, serene, peaceful acceptance of a Jedi; it tended to be more grounded in passion than Obi-Wan was anything like comfortable with. And attachment, too.

Some of it, Obi-Wan could chalk up to the recent trauma and the fact Maul had been left to go feral in regards to the Force for most of his life (at least, his life since coming to Alderaan? Obi-Wan wasn't sure when that was), but not all of it.

The mysteries kept piling up.

When Obi-Wan tried to teach him how to summon an object, Maul had tried it as it was explained; to feel the connection to it and then allow the Force to work through him. But he had failed and after a few more attempts, had apologized (yet again) for not being able to, and then for not being _angry_ enough to do it the other way he once knew how. If that wasn't enough to ring a dozen alarm bells in Obi-Wan's head, Maul's instant unwillingness to explain any further would have done it handily.

There was nothing about Maul which suggested he even had a temper to lose. He was far more apt to be self-deprecating and apologetic than he was to get angry over things; even when something was clearly bothering him (and much seemed to be right now), he just got very quiet and withdrawn and sometimes excused himself, thus cutting lessons short. But the fact remained that his understanding of using the Force had, at some point, involved utilizing anger.

It was driving Obi-Wan a little mad, to be honest. The contradictions and the dichotomies. He kept a very firm grip on his frustration, knowing how easily Maul would be able to feel it if he didn't, but that didn't mean it wasn't there at times. (Occasionally, he even realized how close to hypocrisy he was getting by allowing himself to get frustrated with someone who was only trying their best, and at an age well past when most Force users began formal training.)

Then there was another thing: Who took Maul from Dathomir? And why? And Maul had already answered that he didn't remember ever being on the world, one of the few pieces of his history he had shared; combined with his accent, he had to have been in the Republic as a youngling, and yet the Temple had not found him?

Even at the height of the Order, Maul would have been noteworthy. He wasn't the strongest Force sensitive Obi-Wan had ever met, but he was certainly comfortably above what someone would need to be to be accepted by the Jedi, and his native talents would have made the Temple push fairly hard to gain custody of him for his own sake.

Though, someone had taught him how to shield himself, not only from being open to others mentally, but from being sensed at all.

Perhaps whoever had taught him that he needed to be angry in order to summon something to hand.

Obi-Wan was rebuffed whenever he asked questions enough times that he stopped doing so. And he had to remind himself regularly that these people were hurting and weren't at their best right now. That they deserved his patience and compassion. They were kind people, all of them; the royals, the palace staff. They didn't really need Obi-Wan to be short with them over things beyond their control.

And really, outside of lessons and mysteries, he found himself enjoying their company more and more. Bail, even still ragged and working painstakingly through his trauma, was a wonderful companion; witty and funny and honest. On his good days, he and Obi-Wan had found a pleasant rapport on their mutual willingness to tease each other about things, most usually about their class differences; Obi-Wan would take a shot at Bail about his fancy clothes or high-brow living and Bail would solemnly promise to source a small garbage receptacle for Obi-Wan to call home or offer him first dibs on scraps from the kitchen before they were recycled or composted. There was no meanness to it, though, and Bail never made him feel as if he actually _was_ the dirty transient he had been. Breha and Maul both had similar senses of humor to one another; dry, clever and understated, making excellent use of their ability to deadpan, though occasionally both of them were also capable of a little silliness as well.

He liked them. He didn't _want_ to be frustrated with them, and he did want to help them. But like a dog with a bantha's femur, he kept coming back to gnaw on it, grinding his teeth against it without much success.

Obi-Wan was strong in the Unifying Force. Maul felt disturbingly like destiny; like the manifestation of many _could have happeneds_ and _should have happeneds_ , and those threads were tied to Obi-Wan's in an almost frightening way. As if they had always been fated to cross paths in some form; as if they were both tied to larger _woulds_  or _didn'ts_. Most of the time, Obi-Wan was able to push that feeling aside, but he always ended up circling back to it.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he sat down in the sitting room of his suite and called Master Windu.

The Temple had been largely abandoned, but for a few small handfuls of Forceblinded Jedi who refused to give up their ground and who were still working to try to reverse the disease that had ruined them. Obi-Wan had called a few times, but it often ended up leaving him feeling horrible and guilty afterwards; Mace was the only one who seemed to hold onto some prior spark of his personality that had remained in the ruins of their lives, and Obi-Wan had never appreciated the man's nature before like he did now. Even though his dark eyes were haunted, he was still there trying to help Jedi, and Obi-Wan knew that any Jedi left drifting in the galaxy could call Mace and Mace would do for them whatever he could.

He kept the lights on so that if someone needed to come home, blinded or not, they could. There was bravery in that, and pain, and Obi-Wan wished he had gotten to know Mace better when they were all still one Order, unbroken.

 _"Obi-Wan,"_ Mace answered, after a moment where they regarded each other's hologram presence. It was rather rare to do so with a full-sized hologram like this, and Obi-Wan felt a jolt at the sensation of sitting in the presence of the elder Jedi, even if it was an illusion. _"You're looking better than the last time we spoke."_

"I wish I could say the same," Obi-Wan answered, then winced when he realized how tactless he was.

Mace had lost more weight and looked-- cored, almost ill. Even then, he barked a laugh back, and the sound made Obi-Wan smile. _"I see your manners have degraded, though. What's going on?"_

"I'm on Alderaan; I've found another survivor, but he's not a Jedi." Obi-Wan leaned forward on his chair, resting his elbows on his knees; Mace was clearly in the High Council's chamber, his own chair projected with him.

The fact that Mace didn't even blink in surprise at that gave Obi-Wan an odd sense of foreboding. _"The zabrak."_

"You already know of him."

 _"Yes."_ Mace turned and tapped into the computer system, tied into the control panel on the arm of his chair. _"We tried to get ahold of him when he was in the Republic's prison system, but were turned down on multiple petitions."_

That foreboding got worse, and Obi-Wan had to pick his jaw up off of the floor. _Prison?!_ he thought, something sick and unhappy twisting in the center of his belly. "What-- what can you tell me about him? He's a member of the royal family here, I--"

 _"We know. We did keep an eye on him, but after the Organas petitioned for his probation and got it, we decided that it would be unwise to get into the political entanglements of taking on an Elder House of Alderaan, and no one knew if the boy would ever regain his Force senses after the years of Omega-66 being used on him anyway. By the time he was declared rehabilitated, we had no legal precedent to go after him. And I think they had his records wiped, too, in the Republic's systems, though we still have our copies."_ Mace apparently had gotten done pulling up said records, because he was reading from an invisible projection. _"Maul. That was his name."_

Suddenly, Obi-Wan was considerably less sure that he wanted answers. The twisting in him was so bad that it made him  _nauseous_ ; a sense of horror descending in to fill the cracks between the shock and the dismay. Omega-66 was the midichlorian paralyzer that Obi-Wan remembered being released quite some number of years ago; he had only been a teenager, but he remembered the ripple of fear that impacted even the Temple at the realization that there was a drug out there capable of doing such things, especially long-term.

Now, knowing about the virus that came later, the drug seemed even more horrific. An ill wind ahead of a terrible storm.

"How _old_ was he?" he asked; he knew Maul was around three years younger than he was himself, but--

 _"According to our records, which are mostly our observation and the prison doctor's scans, he was probably twelve when he was convicted and therefore thirteen when he became one of the test cases for the drug."_ Mace didn't seem-- especially disturbed by that, which Obi-Wan couldn't quite understand, though he did seem to view the whole thing with disdain. _"Our observer determined he was Force sensitive and dark-aligned, but we couldn't gain access to talk with him or further test him. Though, he apparently didn't do much speaking."_

Outside of the palace, the thunder of an autumn storm rumbled; inside, Obi-Wan felt genuinely ill. "He's strong in the Force, but-- but doesn't seem to use it actively--" He took a few breaths, a futile attempt to settle his stomach. "What-- what was he convicted of?"

_"Killing three men in an illegal fight ring. No one claimed guardianship of him and the Republic's social services brushed him off because he wasn't technically a Republic citizen, so there wasn't much of a fight to keep him out of the prison system. By the time we heard about him, he was already there, or we might have been able to do something more."_

Obi-Wan couldn't fathom what the Order would have done with a twelve-year-old darksider who had already taken lives, but he naively hoped that it would have been better than Forceblinding him and leaving him to fend for himself amongst adult convicts.

Mace didn't seem to have the same thoughts; if anything, there was a grim concern on his face. _"Be careful, Obi-Wan. Once someone's aligned to the darkness, there's no escaping it."_

There was such a wide sea between what Mace was saying and what Obi-Wan had observed -- what Obi-Wan had _felt_ \-- that he was just sitting with his mouth hanging open. There was nothing truly dark about Maul; he was chaotic and struggling right now, but--

Lightning split the sky outside the window and for a second, he thought someone had walked into the Council's Chambers, given the way Mace pressed back in his seat, looking genuinely startled. But when Mace said, _"Obi-Wan--"_ he turned around and--

\--it was Maul standing there.

Obi-Wan had left his door unlocked, set to allow anyone invited in; he knew that they were due to go try lessons again this afternoon. But he had been so caught up in chewing all of this over that he hadn't thought to check the _time_.

Maul stared at the hologram, then at him; somewhere behind the sound of his own heart hammering in his chest, Obi-Wan could hear Mace trying to say something, but he didn't hear what it was.

Nor, apparently, did Maul. After a moment more of just _looking_  at Obi-Wan, his gaze wandered away; seemingly absently, he reached up and rubbed at his chest and took a breath that sounded far too short, hitched around some invisible wound.

He didn't look like a killer. He didn't look like a dangerous darksider. He didn't even look angry.

He only looked devastated.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to try to say something, but Maul just turned and made his way back out, steps a little unsteady.

Mace's voice finally broke into his thoughts, sharper, questioning, _"Obi-Wan, you haven't been--"_

"I have to go," Obi-Wan said or whispered or thought; he turned back and cut the connection to Mace and then stood for a moment with his hands shaking hard and the bands of ice wrapped around his heart squeezing, and then he went to give chase.

 

 

 

It was more scrambling desperation than Force senses that had Obi-Wan heading down and outside; no matter how blustery the weather, every Force user he knew attuned enough to the Living aspect of it sought to ground themselves. They were the ones happiest in the Temple's gardens or sent out on missions away from Coruscant's overpowering psychic noise and the tall buildings which stretched both up and down; the ones who were never quite comfortable in hyperspace or on the deck of a spacecraft, and the more aligned to the Living Force they were, the less comfortable they were parted from the sources of it.

He doubted Maul was running from him, but this palace had been Maul's home for years; he could disappear easily through it and did.

The trees lining the boulevard leading to the palace were showing the pale undersides of their leaves, the ones that weren't torn loose in the wind to blow by, and the sky overhead was hanging heavy and thick and dark, though it hadn't started raining yet. The mountains surrounding the city were invisible, though; the rain was coming. Obi-Wan frantically tried to reach out and _sense_ where Maul was, but all he could feel was-- was Alderaan, in her tempestuous autumn, and the sense of foreboding heavier than the threatening clouds above him.

He didn't know what he would even say.

The more he thought about it all, the more sick he felt.

His frantically running mind tried on a thousand apologies and a thousand more justifications; even as he followed the walks around the towering palace, shivering as the wind knifed through him, he tried to jam all of the pieces together, tried to make the puzzle all form one whole image, one he could _understand_ , and kept finding that none of it did.

The Royal Gardens were built and planted in a half-circle around the palace's eastern edge, between the foundations and the river which looped through Aldera, to take advantage of the sun from the spring equinox to the fall; now, in the afternoon, the Gardens were largely in shadow, and the last of the flowers were gone, leaving behind only the evergreens and the slow budding of the winterberries. Obi-Wan tucked his hands into his armpits, head ducked against the wind, and kept trying to shove down the despair that was creeping into his gut.

When he came around the edge of a couple of the lowland firs and found Maul on his knees, painstakingly cleaning out dead annuals from a bed, something about the scene struck him as _off_  -- beyond the fact that a nobleman was kneeling in formal business clothes to garden in the middle of a storm, anyway -- but that feeling was quickly lost to the ache in his throat.

Obi-Wan had never realized how welcomed he felt on Alderaan, until he no longer did. Now, he felt-- very much like a poison.

"I just wanted to--" he started, his own voice sounding thin against the tempest, and he didn't even know how to finish that sentence. _\--find out more? Solve the mystery you seem to be?_

Maul froze in place for a moment, though he had to have known Obi-Wan was there, and then went back to pulling dead stalks, setting them neatly to the side; his hands were shaking fairly hard, which just made Obi-Wan feel even more wretched, but he only said, voice quivering, "I haven't really been doing much here, I've-- I've mostly just left it to the staff, I should have--"

"Maul, I'm sorry." Just to be heard over the windstorm and the rumble of thunder, Obi-Wan stepped closer, hands open at his sides, as if by showing he had no weapons he could pretend that the worst ones were physical things to be wielded. "I had no right to do that."

Maul let his hands fall into his lap, dirty fingers twisting the brown stalk of what had been a flower a month ago between them. "I don't know what I _did_ ," he said, a plaintive note bleeding into his voice.

Obi-Wan wasn't sure it was even really him that Maul was talking to, but he didn't need to have solved all of the mysteries to know what the unspoken part of that statement was. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and tried to ignore the shiver in his own jaw or the way his eyes were burning, and managed, "You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't deserve this."

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could hear Master Yoda telling him that the dark side was hard to see; when he opened his eyes and just saw Maul, in his House colors, in a garden he was proud of, on the world which had taken him in, it was easy to silence it.

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan repeated, blinking the tears out of his own eyes, trying to keep his voice even.

Maul sat for another moment, then picked up the dead stalks and got to his feet, wavering a little and looking far more-- profoundly weary and heartsick than anything else, not once making eye contact with Obi-Wan, not even when he sidestepped the offer of a steadying hand. He didn't say anything, and despite the fact that his cloak looked too heavy for his shoulders right now, he walked past Obi-Wan with as much dignity as he could wrap around the outside of it anyway.

 

 

  
Obi-Wan didn't know why he had the compulsion to kneel for Alderaan's queen, but he did it. Rain water dripped off of his hair and he was certain that he cut a very pathetic sight there, but he didn't expect that would grant him much mercy if she took exception to his actions. And Obi-Wan would not have blamed her if she did. He had helped bring her youngest home alive, but that gave him no right to do what he had done after.

He couldn't even fathom trying to face Bail or Breha right now.

"A penitent," Queen Mazi had said, after she had shoo'd her attendants out. Her voice was gentle enough, though there was note in it which suggested that she was prepared to hear something she knew she wouldn't like. "What have you done to look so guilty, Obi-Wan?"

It took him a little time to gather words, and Obi-Wan felt even more wretched when Mazi got a throw off of the back of her office's couch to wrap around him, but he stayed on his knees and he told her what had happened.

What he had done.

He was not surprised by the look of quiet disappointment in her eyes when he did finally chance a look up, or how deeply he wished he hadn't caused it. He was a little moreso by the lack of anger.

"If you revoke your hospitality, I'll be gone as quickly and quietly as possible," he said, voice rough.

Mazi pressed her mouth into a line, but then she answered, "I don't see what good punishing you will do, when you already know what you did wrong and why it was wrong to do it, Master Jedi. And I think you running away from this will only leave behind scars, and nothing good to look forward to once they've healed. So, no, I won't be kicking you out; I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep making your desire to build a pyre for yourself harder. You'll just have to make this choice for yourself."

Unaccountably, Obi-Wan's bottom lip quivered at that. He wasn't even sure why, only that something about those words hurt, even as they soothed him and left him with a strange sense of something almost like yearning.

Mazi leaned against her desk and gave his arm a nudge with her foot. "Come on, get up, dear. My rug has done nothing to provoke you into tormenting it so."

Obi-Wan hitched a laugh that was almost a sob, looking at the dark splotches left from his rain-soaked self, and then got up. Everything ached; his heart, his chest. Now his knees, as well. He swallowed and when she adjusted the throw around his shoulders, he failed utterly to stop new tears from falling.

"Maul will forgive you," she said, reaching back to get a tissue off of her desk to blot away his tears, and the tenderness of the action just made even more well up. "So will Bail and Breha. But they won't ever get the chance if you leave, swallowed by your shame."

He gave a nod, taking the tissue and trying desperately to achieve some composure. Though, that was proving to be so much harder now. He knew then that he would not leave, even if the size of his error made repairing it and healing the damage feel daunting. "I'd be-- incredibly grateful for any advice you have," he said, and was perhaps a little more chastened to realize this was the first time he had asked anyone else for such.

"That's easy. Time, and patience, and kindness." Mazi smiled a little, shaking her head. "Be there. Don't try to fix things, don't fall into the trap my oldest did, just-- be there, and be kind. The rest will fall into place."

Obi-Wan bobbed his head in a nod, winding the tissue between his fingers before wiping his face again. His voice was still a little wrecked when he said, "I was thinking flowers."

That made Mazi laugh. "Well, if you insist. I would have suggested some off-world teas, Maul's had some interest in trying to cultivate new plants in order to try some new blends, at least before everything of late. But if you want to be romantic about it, flowers would do. Living ones, of course."

The idea of it being romantic had not crossed Obi-Wan's mind, but he felt his face warm at the implication nonetheless. "Anything else?"

"You will never make him into a Jedi," Mazi said, after a moment, more solemnly. "And you should stop trying to. The good in him isn't something he gained just by virtue of coming here, it was always there, and I am grateful every single day of my life that we managed to bring him to a place where he has a chance to live it, but it's not the same kind of good which you were taught to seek. Find a way to teach him that works for him; he might never be a Jedi, but you'll find no more loyal a friend and ally."

Obi-Wan let that thought settle into his mind, only the barest hints of unease accompanying it, until even those were gone. There was truth to her words. He was only making both his and Maul's lives harder trying to follow conventional Jedi teaching, even if the model he once had was also aligned to the Living Force. "I will. If he'll have me as a teacher again."

"He will." Mazi sounded certain of it, which was more of a relief than Obi-Wan quite knew what to do with. She reached up and grasped the back of Obi-Wan's head, his hair catching a little on her rings, and pulled him down to press a kiss to his brow before letting him go. "Go and get dried off and dressed warmly, I can't bear to watch you shivering any longer."

He had rather forgotten he was; feeling the sharp mix of hurt and healing and a deep, powerful gratitude for her maternal kindness, he stepped back and bowed, and then turned around to take his leave and do just that, and perhaps go and pursue tea plants on the HoloNet after.

 

 

 

It was only when Obi-Wan woke up in the middle of the night, though, that he finally realized what it was that was _off_ about the sight of Maul, kneeling in the Royal Gardens, beyond his formal clothing and the season.

The Jedi listened to the rain against the tall, graceful window overlooking his bed and felt the weight of that realization, thinking with something he could not define as awe or fear, but perhaps having shades of both:

_The wind never touched him._


	5. Chapter 5

Of course, when Obi-Wan woke again the next morning to the sunny skies outside, he thought that it was silly of him to make such a wild leap of deduction. The storm had already been forecast before he'd even thought to call Mace. And Maul's cloak was heavy enough that the wind might have had a much harder time tossing it about. The thought that an entire weather system could be influenced by one being was just too much; he had heard tell of Force storms, in lore, but those were largely thought to be myth and misdirection and not a case of reality.

Still, there was just enough doubt that it lingered.

His first order of business for the day was to throw himself on the mercy of Bail and Breha, and hope that his error in judgment didn't destroy the friendships he had come to enjoy with them. He dressed in his simplest robes and waited until he knew they were up for the day and finished with breakfast before he went to find them.

Unsurprisingly, Breha was the most frank about it. "Take it up with Maul, Obi-Wan. And I swear, if you ever do anything like that again, I'll snatch that mane you call hair right off of your head and hang it over my impending throne."

Mind, she said that  _after_ he had already humbled himself thoroughly by explaining what he did, how it was wrong and how he intended to try to make it right and so there was some humor in the statement. But there was some genuine durasteel in it, too; he thought it likely that she might not bother separating his scalp from the rest of his head before hanging it. "If I ever do anything like that again, I'll make sure I'm on my knees to make it easier to take it off," he had answered.

Bail was more like his mother; he was more disappointed than angry about it, and just pressed his mouth into a line, regarding the Jedi but leaving it to his wife to answer for them both. Considering all that Bail was trying to deal with, emotionally, Obi-Wan couldn't blame the man. This was something this family shouldn't have had to worry about, on top of all of the other things they were facing, and he thought probably his own understanding of that fact was what even afforded him a second chance right now.

He didn't know how to feel about the fact that Maul had refused to explain to them what had upset him. Obi-Wan thought that Bail and Breha were as much bothered by that as they were by the events themselves, though not angry in the same way. Just concerned.

Maul himself was far harder to track down; apparently, his way of dealing with things involved him burying himself in work. He was gone from the palace before Obi-Wan had even gotten out of bed and didn't come back for the entire day, leaving Obi-Wan to simmer in his guilt and spend more credits than he'd strictly intended buying seedlings on the HoloNet, tapping into the small savings he had managed to put together picking up odd jobs for the past few years. Though, at least those arrived very quickly, since the nursery was on Corellia and Alderaan and the Five Brothers had quite solid trade relations.

That pattern held for a number of days, too. No matter how early Obi-Wan woke up, he somehow kept missing the zabrak; by the morning of the third day, he started leaving seedlings outside of Maul's door, just in some desperation to make _contact._

"I feel like a lovesick suitor," he lamented to Mazi, over lunch, face buried in his hands. "Leaving gifts and waiting for a favor, some-- storybook pauper courting a prince."

She had laughed at him, hard, and even though that might have made him feel worse in other contexts, it oddly made him feel better in this one. Then Mazi saluted with her tea cup, weathered face crinkled in a thoroughly amused expression. "If you decide to serenade outside of his door, I want an invitation to watch." Then she shook her head, still smiling. "Patience, dear. He'll come around."

Obi-Wan still hadn't run out of tea plant seedlings -- from all over the Republic, even a couple from outside of Republic space -- by the time twelve days had passed from when he had made his awful mistake. But it was only after he had given up actually chasing Maul that he finally ran into him, just after setting another tiny plant in front of his door in the hours before dawn.

Maul looked rather worn out; footsore and heavy-shouldered. He was dressed for field work and carrying his wet boots tied over his shoulder, socked feet barely making a sound on the hard floor as he rounded the corner of the hallway, and his expression was that of someone who wanted nothing more than to get a shower and crawl into bed.

For some reason, the sight of those boots, the fact that Maul hadn't wanted to track up the floor was-- rather endearing.

But he stopped when he saw Obi-Wan, and instantly drew himself up defensively, working his jaw and then moving for his door with a great deal of finality.

Obi-Wan tried half a dozen times in the space of those seconds to open his mouth and produce _words_ and only succeeded when Maul crouched to pick up the seedling. "I-- I didn't know if you were keeping them."

He felt a little scorched by the glance he got back. Still, there was a gentleness in the way Maul picked the plant up, careful not to bruise its small leaves. "What would I do, throw them out? They've done nothing wrong." The zabrak stood again, resting his hand on his door handle, letting it register who he was.

"I-- I could leave. If that would--" Obi-Wan couldn't remember a time in his adulthood when he had ever stammered like this. "If that would make it up to you."

Maul paused and just looked at him, incredulously, distaste clear in his features. "I don't want anything made up to me. And I'm not so _petty_ as to drive a man from a place where he has been welcomed, particularly when he was in need of shelter."

Obi-Wan wanted very much to protest that, defensiveness rocketing through his chest, the sensation of having been caught out and pinned. But he swallowed it down and took a centering breath and answered, "I hurt you. This is your home, you have every right to feel safe and comfortable here, and I had no right to make you feel otherwise." For all of his half-joking lamenting to Mazi about how this reminded him of courting, the reality very quickly settled back on Obi-Wan's shoulders and his throat thickened. "I was arrogant, and I was self-righteous, and Maul, I _am_ sorry."

"Would you be apologizing if you'd gotten away with it?" Maul asked, after a moment, the words clipped and the anger he hadn't seemed to possess before making an appearance in a flash of his canines.

Obi-Wan wanted to say he would have, but he _did_  have to take a moment to answer, though he held out a hand begging for Maul to give him said moment. Remembering it made him feel nauseous all over again, really; not just being caught, but-- all of it. He couldn't really picture the nobleman in front of him as a little boy, but he could certainly feel the--

The wrongness, that someone who would give his life out of love and loyalty and who would rather retreat than pay back a hurt in kind had survived all of that; had survived being thrown into fights with adults, survived slipping through the cracks in the Republic's legal system, survived being _used_ to test a terrible drug that had Forceblinded him for years at a time, only to be judged unworthy by Jedi standards.

"I don't know," he finally said, swallowing and closing his eyes, voice quivering a little bit. "I knew-- I knew it felt wrong, and I was genuinely sickened by-- by what you were put through, and I could feel the incongruity between what I have been taught as truth and what I _know_ of you, what I already knew before I ever made that call. But I don't know if I would have had the courage to apologize right away. I like to-- I like to believe myself a good enough man that I would have done so, but I--" He shook his head, not having it in him to open his eyes again yet. "I can't say for sure, Maul. All I can say is that I know that I hurt you, and I never, ever wanted to do that. I doubt any of my reasons as to why I thought to make that call softens that I did so, but I would tell you any and all of them if you wished it."

There was a long period of silence, so thick that it was nearly a solid thing, something Obi-Wan could reach out and touch. Then, Maul asked, sounding incredibly tired, "What do you want, Obi-Wan?"

That worn note made Obi-Wan's throat close up even further. He knew he wanted to be forgiven, knew he wanted back the friendship he had been steadily building with Maul, and the rest of Maul's family; he knew he wanted to erase the hurt he caused. He knew he wanted back that slow, tentative feeling of _belonging_ that had been creeping in the longer he stayed on this beautiful world, the sort of belonging he had not felt in years.

He also was at least grown-up enough to realize that it didn't work that way.

He palmed the tears off of his face and opened his eyes. "Let me teach you what I promised I would. I'll do better this time. Whether I can ever re-earn your esteem or not, I'd like to at least give you that much."

Maul had leaned his shoulder against his door, and now took a slow breath that trembled a little on the exhale. "Give me a few days," he finally said, sounding more resigned to it than anything else, before pushing to stand up straight and opening the door he had propped himself up against.

Obi-Wan nodded back, not sure what else to say; the resignation bothered him, but he supposed that was to be expected. There had been plenty of times in his youth he had felt much the same; knowing he would have to interact with people who were careless with him or hurtful towards him, but having little choice in the matter.

"And stop drowning these poor things," Maul added, holding up the tea plant; he still sounded rather leveled, but there was something-- a little softer there, too. Even if Obi-Wan didn't know if it was for him or for the plants. "You're overwatering them. Water them to their roots, but don't let them sit in it, and let the top layers of soil dry before doing it again."

It wasn't quite forgiveness, but Obi-Wan was grateful for it anyway. He nodded again, pressing his mouth into a rueful, apologetic smile, and then turned to go and give Maul the space he'd asked for.

 

 

 

In amidst everything else going on, there was the matter of Breha's ascendancy to the throne of Alderaan.

Obi-Wan even had some misgivings about that; he didn't know her nearly so well as her family did, obviously, but he knew how unsteady things were emotionally for everyone, however strongly they held fast to their duties and each other. When he asked Mazi about it, she had looped her arm through his, just as she did her sons, and smiled at him. "This was decided years ago, Obi-Wan. Right down to when I would abdicate. I've always been Bre's placeholder; I've served, I've accomplished everything I had intended to, I've finally managed to bury the hatchet between us and House Antilles for what looks to be the last time, I've secured my family's future. I've been watching that woman since she was a wild-hearted girl with dirty knees and her hair coming loose from her braids, sticking up for bullied classmates; I could not have found a better queen if I'd given birth to her myself."

Whenever he thought that he had come to understand how clever Mazicia Organa was, she said something like that and reminded him of just how long a game she had played to gain the throne and just how deeply she loved her world to arrange things such that two of its most honorable Elder Houses would lead it, under House Organa's banner.

"Besides," Mazi added, reaching across herself and patting his arm as they walked towards her office, "my boys will never leave her to carry more than she can shoulder. She's loved as princess, and she will be loved as queen, both in public and in private."

All worry about how things were aside, Breha did seem prepared. She was due to take the crown during the New Year's Fete and it seemed a wholly apt time for such a thing. Out of the three, she was the first one to return to easy camaraderie with Obi-Wan; once she had delivered her promise to scalp him (or behead him) if he ever hurt her lover again, she didn't bring it up again and it wasn't terribly long before he was graced with her good humor and warm company anew.

As such, he felt he was allowed to ask, "Are you sure now's the time? After-- after everything?"

Breha had looked up at him from where she was working, taking the tea he offered her, and then she sat back in her chair, shoulders all but disappearing into the padded leather. The silence was comfortable, though, as it was clear that she was thinking over his question and working out how to answer it.

"I think, given the current political situation in the Republic, that the galaxy needs Alderaan's example," she said, after a few moments and a couple sips of tea. "And I think that I'm ready to acquit myself as her leader."

There was nothing arrogant about that statement; it was just spoken as fact. Obi-Wan knew surprisingly little about the current state of the Republic, thanks to his long time wandering, but he had heard that there had been numerous trials for corruption and many Senate seats changing hands. Altogether, he thought that was probably a good thing; the Republic had been getting steadily more and more inefficient and scandal was often the norm and had been for as long as Obi-Wan could remember. Still, there was something about Breha's tone which suggested it wasn't as simple as all of that.

Breha must have noticed his expression; she set her mug on her desk and leaned forward, resting her elbows on it, looking at him with the gentle look he had finally come to understand was one many Alderaanians tended wear when they handled those they felt needed some extra care. "I'm all right, Obi-Wan. I've been making the tough calls most of my adult life, I'm ready to shoulder this. I have both Houses behind me and a wide family to love me, and friends the galaxy over. This is my world, it's my time to serve her."

It had put Obi-Wan's heart at ease, anyway; the straight-forward honesty of the statement. And the demonstrable truth of it, too. He had been on enough outings with Breha to observe just how well-loved she was; from when she was jokingly called on to sing in the last summer market and had, delighting everyone and provoking half the crowd to sing with her, to when she was crouching down talking to school children, letting them fiddle with the ribbon in her braid or the jewelry she wore and smiling at them like everything about them was wonderful. She was just as comfortable in a formal gown as she was in street clothes and she never seemed to be anything less than _real_ in any of it. There was no pretentiousness in her.

"I'm at your service," he said, saluting her with his own tea, half-smiling.

Breha's broad grin was infectious. "Good. I expect you at my coronation _and_ the reception after. One can never go wrong with some extra eye-candy."

Obi-Wan almost choked on the sip of tea he had been in the midst of and then gave a little cough; he could _feel_  his face go red. "Pardon? _Eye candy?_ " he managed.

That got her laughing, and even while he was blushing and sputtering a little bit, Obi-Wan couldn't help the warm rush of affection when Breha fell back in her seat, beaming at him as she said, "Damn straight."

 

 

 

His relationship with Bail, though, was considerably less easy. What had been increasingly comfortable became more than stilted; Obi-Wan hadn't realized how much faith Bail had extended to him until it was withdrawn. Not that Bail did so overtly, but Obi-Wan could feel it as certainly as if it was a proclamation called to echo around the mountains around Aldera. The man was polite with him, he remained kind, but being locked on the other side of that door _hurt_.

Obi-Wan knew he only had himself to blame, there, but that didn't take away the ache.

Mace had tried to call him back a half-dozen times before giving up when Obi-Wan didn't answer any of them. It wasn't even because Obi-Wan thought ill of the other Jedi; Mace was only acting in a way which seemed to be in line with the Code, after all, was only trying to protect the fragments of the Order. It was because Obi-Wan knew that in this case, the Code was wrong. His teachings were wrong. No matter what direction Obi-Wan tried to twist things, there were no teachings in the galaxy that overrode what he could see in front of him, what he could sense.

There was really only one way to repair his friendship with Bail, and that was to repair his friendship with Maul, which was something he wanted to do for its own sake anyway.

"I'm sort of surprised you're here," he told the zabrak, when Maul showed up at his door three days later.

Maul breathed out and gave a weary quirk of his brow. "My mother told me I had to be," he said, rather dryly, not quite humor but carrying the hints of it.

Obi-Wan highly doubted Mazi would have pushed the issue, but that answer still had him trying to chew down a smile. "If you need more time, I'm willing to wait," he offered back, though he stepped aside and held the door open in invitation anyway.

"No." Maul stepped in, rubbing over his face and then glancing around once he was in the sitting room. Obi-Wan quit trying not to smile when Maul's gaze landed on the remaining tea plants, the six more that had not yet been delivered.

He closed the door and went over there, picking one up and bringing it over for inspection; he had set them up on a nice end table in the window, where they would get just enough sun, and he had taken a great deal more care not to overwater them. He couldn't help but feel a little like a student, right then, hoping for a passing grade.

Maul took the pot from him and held up the plant, inspecting it with slightly narrowed eyes, turning it around in his fingers. After a moment, he held it out for Obi-Wan to take back. "Much better. If you want to add more compost to the soil, you can get it from the kitchen staff."

Obi-Wan did take it back, but before he thought about it, he was saying, "They're yours. I mean-- I bought them for you."

Maul eyed him, only one brow up. It wasn't skepticism, exactly, nor was it quite an arch look. It was only after a long moment of that scrutiny that Obi-Wan realized that it was probably quite awkward, being given gifts by someone you had at least mixed and perhaps sour feelings towards. "Hold onto them for awhile," Maul said, at length, which was probably the only answer he could give that wouldn't cross the lines of rudeness on one side and the lines towards friendship on the other.

"All right. Ah-- I'll keep watering them as I am, and add compost." Obi-Wan took the plant back over and set it down on the table with its fellows, relieved even for that neutral response. "Should I move them when they get bigger?"

"You'll probably need to repot them in a few weeks. Perhaps a month." Maul crossed his arms, shoulders shifting under his black sweater. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get on with this."

Polite, mostly, but firm. Obi-Wan resisted the urge to wince. "I was-- actually, I was hoping you might be willing to go somewhere? Anywhere you like, just out of the city?"

Maul's brow furrowed as he squinted back, confused. "The high country is all snow and the low country is mostly sleet."

"I know." Obi-Wan's plans were half-nebulous, but the purpose behind it was clear in his mind. "What I'm thinking is that I've mostly been trying to teach you based on what I learned, but it's not working. So, if I could observe more and assume less, we could figure out a way for you to learn these things that works for you."

There was a long pause while Maul seemed to be working that over, and then he asked, a touch incredulously, "And this requires snow...?"

Obi-Wan ended up chuckling, shaking his head. "No. Just you, out doing what you enjoy doing."

 

 

 

That was how Obi-Wan Kenobi ended up on skis.

He wondered a little if it was payback, given the glint in Maul's eyes as they stood at the top of the fairly tame slope. Obi-Wan was wearing a borrowed ski suit in eye-searingly bright colors -- "Safety measure," Maul had said, despite the fact that the suit _he_  was wearing was a stylish black and red number -- and feeling his heart pounding in his throat as he looked down.

Even though it might have been payback, Maul had already walked him through beginner lessons; taught him how to hook his boots into the skis, how to slide on them, how to balance and walk uphill. How to slow himself and stop. And this really was a tame slope, just a gentle downhill that came to a natural level.

Still, Obi-Wan watched a laughing _three-year-old_ ski down well to their right and felt just silly enough.

"If I get myself killed, I'd like you to exaggerate my eulogy. 'Jedi Knight slaughtered by bunny hill' would be a terrible legacy," he grumbled, jokingly, as he pulled his goggles down over his eyes.

"I'll suitably embellish the story," Maul answered, and Obi-Wan was cheered to see him failing to chew down a grin. "An avalanche, a daring rescue, a flip of your hair perhaps."

Obi-Wan was laughing before he quite intended to, feeling a little more of the tension cracking in the air as he did so. And then he nodded his agreement and did indeed flip his hair -- for accuracy -- before he took a deep breath and turned his skis to point downhill, wobbling a little nervously when he finally went faster than walking speed.

By the end of the day, he was cold and his legs hurt, he hadn't come up with a single plan or observation, but he had gotten Maul to grin more than once.

And that was a much better way to start over again.


	6. Chapter 6

When Maul had asked him how good he was at piloting an airspeeder, Obi-Wan had answered honestly that he was quite good. Had he known what would come next, though, he might have dodged the question.

"What are you doing?!" he asked, sharp against the wind that was a little bit difficult to hold the speeder steady against, near the pointed peak of a mountain, when Maul _opened the side door of the speeder_ after disabling the safeties. Not that it silenced the blaring alarm on the dashboard.

Maul pulled his goggles down over his eyes and shrugged, picking up his ski poles. "Skiing," he answered, simply.

And then he promptly jumped out of the speeder.

_He jumped out of the hovering speeder at the top of a mountain._

The noise Obi-Wan made was so undignified that he was almost glad that the zabrak had taken his leave, even if in such a terrifying manner.

 

 

 

After five days of lessons, Obi-Wan had learned a fair bit about skiing -- complemented by his use of the Force it became much easier -- but he still hadn't quite figured out how to teach Maul, nor had he graduated to a ski suit that was less eye-bleeding bright. He had learned that Maul was a good instructor, despite the ribbing he couldn't resist giving Obi-Wan, and he had gotten good enough to ski down an intermediate slope without panicking, but that was all. The lessons ended up revolving around him, rather than Maul, which was exactly the opposite of how it was supposed to go.

"Are you actually enjoying this?" he asked, on the fifth day, after Maul sedately followed him down the slope and turned to a smooth stop.

Maul's brows wavered a little. "I am. Why?"

Maul had remained very closed off to Obi-Wan since that comm call to the Temple; he had obviously redoubled his efforts to become opaque, both emotionally and by his Force signature. Sometimes that slipped when he was actually _asleep_ and the occasional nightmare would wake Obi-Wan up even a number of suites away, but apparently whoever had taught him how to shield had taught him to construct them such that they followed him even there for the most part.

Thus, it was a great deal harder to tell if he was being sincere or if he was engaging in a game of Placating the Jedi.

"It just seems very-- slow and calm," Obi-Wan answered, unsure of how to explain. "You're skilled at this; aren't you getting bored with teaching me, especially since I'm supposed to be figuring out how to teach you?"

Maul left just one brow up, then said, pleasantly, "Beyond the fact that I generally like sharing my hobbies, I get to watch you glide intently downhill in a neon yellow and pink ski suit. What's not to enjoy?"

Obi-Wan-- probably deserved that. For all that Maul was straight-forward and kind in his skiing instruction, he was still clearly smarting over what Obi-Wan had done, and far be it from Obi-Wan to do more than accept that poking and retribution in good grace, especially since he was fairly sure Maul would stop if he made a genuine complaint about it. If taking some gentle hazing meant regaining Maul's friendship, it was easily worth that.

"Do you usually ski like this?" he asked, more bluntly.

Maul cleared his throat, then shook his head. "Ah, no. I typically prefer to go off-course and into the wilderness and ski there."

"Can we do that?" Obi-Wan asked.

"It's more advanced than what you've learned."

"I could be a spectator."

Maul huffed and eyed him and asked that fateful question: "How well can you pilot an airspeeder?"

 

 

 

 _Advanced_ was a massive understatement.

It took Obi-Wan a good minute to even figure out how to be a spectator while wrestling with an airspeeder and keeping pace, all while not crashing it into an outcropping or worse. Eventually he had to turn and just hover down sideways and gently, back far enough to really get a view and keeping an eye out to make sure he didn't fly into anything.

In this rough and ragged backcountry there were no blazed trails, nor was there likely any kind of safety measure. None of that seemed to deter Maul, who was a small speck of motion against the vast field of white and gray rock, against intermittent slopes and obstacles well above the treeline. Obi-Wan's heart felt like it was probably somewhere in Maul's pocket for what it was doing just _watching_ this madness.

Maul cut a clean line, though; went down almost vertically from the peak he had jumped down to on his snap-skis, and then banked hard around a sharp and jutting outcropping, white powder flying up like a cloud, hiding him temporarily until he reappeared again. Not ten seconds later, he was airborne over another ridge, this one apparently having had enough snow built up over it to use it as a launch ramp, and Obi-Wan's heart did the same mid-air flip before Maul landed again, having hung seemingly suspended in the sky in a feat of acrobatics that would have rightfully impressed anyone.

Obi-Wan might have sworn under his breath a few times. Whether it was shock or admiration, even he didn't know.

It was while he was playing spectator to what would appear to be a zabrak with a deathwish or a daredevil streak to anyone sane (a claim Obi-Wan would only tenuously make under pressure), that he realized that he could sense Maul again; at first subtly, then more and more clearly, he could feel the intensity and determination and a wild-hearted joy, so thick it made his spine and chest and teeth nearly ache from it, something Obi-Wan couldn't quite figure out whether it was pleasure or pain or both tangled together.

It was breathtaking, regardless.

It was also the first time he started to understand exactly how Maul interacted with the Force around him.

It wasn't in the aerial feats or even in the quick, split-second decision-making that had to go on with each new obstacle, though the Force likely helped with that. Instead, his entire signature seemed to shift into a harmony, sometimes a synchrony, with that of Alderaan herself.

Obi-Wan had never seen the like of it before. There were Jedi more adept than him who could _open_ themselves to the Force and take a very secondary place to it, acting as a nearly pure conduit, but he had never seen anyone's signature shift like that, as if the whole of their being could be brought into tune like a stringed instrument to a surrounding symphony. Not a conduit, but-- a part of.

He was so intent on figuring that out that he hovered a little too close, but it was when he pushed the speeder into reverse that he set off a chain reaction.

The repulsors on the airspeeder opened up a crack in the sheet of snow; at first, it seemed like it would be no worse than that, but then it broke loose under its own weight.

The adrenaline rush slammed into Obi-Wan hard enough that he could actually _feel_ it bounce back off of Maul, like an echo, and he snapped a hand out to try to stop the avalanche in progress with his own telekinetics, wrestling with the speeder with his other hand, not sure even an expert skier would be able to out-race it; the snow gathered speed and force even as he failed, though, and then he was trying to get a grip on Maul himself in all of that, but it was like trying to hold a handful of dry sand in his fist.

Maul had a beacon on his suit _and_  in his boot, Obi-Wan had the tracker, but he still felt his heart choking him in his throat as it seemed the entire side of the mountain turned into a sea, rolling like ocean waves, rumbling. When he lost sight of Maul and then lost all track of his Force presence, he started shaking even as he waited for the snow to all come to a stop so he could triangulate a landing spot from the tracker.

It rumbled down and down, making for the treeline with terrifying speed; Obi-Wan followed the leading edge of it, searching desperately for any sign of Maul in that, both visually and through the Force. But as the avalanche ran into a series of ridges, it slowed and then came to a rolling stop, some of it exploding off of the crest of a ridge like sea-foam, leaving Obi-Wan panting and staring over the wide field of displaced snow.

That was when he got his second jolt of adrenaline.

Even as the snow finished moving, Obi-Wan could pick out the canyon carved into it like the point of a spear, which spread out like the tail of a comet, wider and wider until it was undetectable from the rest of the snow.

And at its very point, a comparatively tiny spot of black and red under the towering walls some twenty meters high, was Maul.

Suddenly, the thought that Maul could influence a whole storm system seemed plausible again.

 

 

 

Landing an airspeeder and extracting a zabrak from a canyon he had carved himself proved to be challenging.

Still, it gave Obi-Wan something to focus on besides the fact that he felt rather shaken up by it, namely because if _he_ was shaken, that must have meant Maul was positively rattled.

It took him less than ten minutes to land and scale down, but Maul hadn't moved except to sit; he hadn't even hit the button to collapse his skis, he was just sitting with them awkwardly folded with the rest of him. He didn't look injured, didn't even look bruised, but he was shaking hard and the unshielded, nuanced distress rolling off of him meant Obi-Wan had to work to keep his own mental shields up enough to not be so heavily influenced by it.

He pulled his mittens off and hit the button on the underside of the ski pole's grip to make those skis collapse back to the boots, as he had seen Maul do before, then carefully pulled the pole straps off of Maul's wrists, all while trying to keep his voice even. "Are you all right?"

It seemed for a moment like Maul was too disoriented to answer, but then he managed to say, "I don't know," hoarsely. He looked up at the walls, the spear-point he'd carved around himself, taking in the _enormity_ of it. And then he closed his eyes tight, breathing hard.

Obi-Wan wasn't feeling any _pain_ off of him, at least not of the physical sort, but instead an almost queasy sensation of confusion and dizziness and anxiety. Ignoring how the blue-white walls reflected the wince-worthy colors of his ski suit, he kept his voice light as he said, "I'll bet there were some woodland creatures downhill who were very relieved you could do that." He paused, then grimaced. "They might have a grudge against me for eternity, though."

"I'd pay good credits to see that play out," Maul answered, at some length, shuddering harder and going to rub at his eyes before apparently realizing both goggles and gloves prevented it.

Obi-Wan blew out a relieved breath; at least Maul was clearly aware of where he was and who he was with. "Here, come on. I'll give you a hand out and take you somewhere for something hot to drink."

Maul gave him a look, though the force of it was diminished some for the fact his teeth were still rattling intermittently. "Are you handling me, Master Jedi?"

"Indeed I am, Lord Maul." If it caused offense, then Obi-Wan had already almost accidentally buried Maul under an avalanche; he probably couldn't beat that. "Come on, up you go," he added, getting his hands under Maul's elbows to pull him up; once they were both on their feet again, he didn't let go, keeping at least one hand on the reeling nobleman as he found them a path they could climb out even for their unsteadiness, making sure he didn't forget Maul's ski poles.

Once they were back in the airspeeder, Obi-Wan took one more loop around the avalanche site just to take in the _scope_ of it; of what had to be tons upon tons of snow, an entire mountainside of it, and the canyon carved arrow sharp into the heart of it.

Carved out by one person.

Maul looked at it too, eyes troubled, and then he pulled off his gloves and goggles, tossed them into the backseat, and didn't come out from behind the shelter of his hand until they were landing back in civilization.

 

 

 

Alderaan's charms went far beyond her wilderness and Aldera, though both of those were beautiful. Aldera's stately polished transpari-and-durasteel buildings, a silver city in a deep bowl surrounded by ragged peaks, made Coruscant feel grungy by comparison, and Obi-Wan was steadily gaining appreciation for how much care Alderaanians took with the world they lived on, as well.

But there were towns beyond tucked into mountains and valleys, and it was in one of those where Obi-Wan stopped so that he could make good on his insistence to get Maul something hot to drink, despite the fact that Maul didn't seem cold. Perhaps it was the trembling that gave that impression, though it seemed to have mostly abated by the time they landed.

"Crestview," Maul said, naming the relatively small town without having to look at the nav display; his voice was still a little ragged, but he sounded a bit better. "There's a good caf shop down the main strip, towards the end," he added, which for some reason had Obi-Wan smiling.

Parking was limited to public spaces, but it was a short walk from there to the aforementioned shop, and Obi-Wan held the old-style door open. The entire town seemed to be built into the pines and made of the same; this particular building was warm, varying shades of brown from the different stains used on the wood, with vast and soaring windows overlooking the peaks of the surrounding mountains that were now casting the town into evening shadows. Above, quilts hung from beams for sale, and on the spans of walls between windows were moss paintings, beautiful scenes or abstracts growing and climbing up to the rafters.

It smelled lovely, too; Obi-Wan took a deep breath, just for the pleasure of it.

"Is there anything on this planet that isn't beautiful?" he asked, following Maul to one of the tables near to the windows; outside, the balcony was covered in snow.

"Swamps are useful and I'll protect them as vigorously as everything else on this world, but I hate the smell of stangnant water and I'm apparently very attractive to leeches," Maul answered, dropping into a chair and resting his elbows on the table as he worked over his face with his hands. Luckily for both of them, they had worn respectable clothing under their ski suits and had parkas in the back of the speeder, so Obi-Wan didn't have to come out into yet more public in his screamingly bright ensemble. "That was one of the longest semesters of my life, when I was mucking my way through all of those. Fourteen, all told, by the time I was finished with that rotation."

"What put you onto the environmental sciences, anyway?" Obi-Wan settled himself, after hanging his parka on the back of his chair.

Maul dropped his hands, resting them on the table, and quirked his brow. "It seemed intuitive. I like being outside, I like moving, I was climbing trees and hiking before I even decided to go to University. Mazi nudged me in that direction after we had a long talk about what I wanted to major in -- I hadn't quite known yet -- and since her younger brother had been an environmental scientist, I was willing to give it a try. I couldn't imagine doing anything else now, really."

"I don't know if I could imagine you doing anything else, either," Obi-Wan offered back, and was pleased he got a lopsided smile back for the observation.

Maul finally seemed to remember he hadn't taken his parka off and stood to do that, rolling out of it and hanging it around the back of his chair like Obi-Wan had, before sitting down again. "Tayvor was an agricultural specialist; quite a good one, too. When I first started out, I wasn't specialized yet and I ended up writing a paper and citing a number of his. I ultimately took to forestry and geology, but I think Mazi--" His voice trailed off and then went more hesitant. "What has you looking like that?"

Obi-Wan felt like he'd just been punched in the chest. "Tayvor Mandirly."

Maul nodded, cautiously, eying Obi-Wan with some wariness. "I never got to meet him, but he certainly had a place in my commencement speech."

"I--" Obi-Wan paused, swallowing and trying to figure out how much he should even say, but before he'd even decided that, the words came. "I was the one who found his body."

Maul's stunned blink back at that was almost more than he could take seeing, and so he took his turn to rub over his face, elbows on the table.

Apparently it was his turn to tremble, too.

"She mentioned that-- that Jedi had--" Maul paused a long moment, then said, "You couldn't have been more than a boy when that happened."

It didn't sound like he was calling Obi-Wan a liar; still, it was quite nearly enough to make Obi-Wan point out that Maul had been much younger than that when he was fighting adults in illegal fighting rings. There was something about it, about that gentle note, as if _he_ was the one who now needed handled as if he was fragile, that made his hackles rise.

Later, he would have space in his mind to ruefully reflect on how easy it was to fall back into that half-feral mindset he'd been in when he first came to Alderaan. Even now, though, he had the good sense to bite back any nasty, self-sabotaging retorts, especially as he was only just _starting_ to win back the trust he'd squandered so carelessly before.

That didn't stop his hands from shaking.

He didn't have an answer to it; at least, he couldn't think of any kind one, so he just kept his face buried in his hands and listened as Maul quietly ordered them something or another, hearing that soft voice even if he wasn't able to really process the words. Behind his eyelids, he could see the mutilated body of a man who was brother to a woman he'd come to deeply respect, and the uncle in-absentia of the person sitting across from him. "I didn't even put it together," he said, after a moment, voice raw enough that it made him wince hearing it issuing from his own throat.

"She was a Mandirly before she was an Organa," Maul said, still quietly, and Obi-Wan jumped a little when Maul took to rubbing up and down his forearm despite the fact he still had his face buried in his hands.

Obi-Wan didn't know if he wanted to grab the offered hand or swat it away, so he just huffed out a ragged breath. "I was seventeen; an adult, by Republic standards."

Maul, sensibly or diplomatically, didn't comment on that. Instead he said, "I'm sorry that you saw that."

There was no answer for that, either. After a long several moments of failing to find one, Obi-Wan left one hand over his eyes, but he let Maul have the other one and tried to ignore whatever it was in him that was calling him weak for taking comfort in the warm fingers wound around his own.

 

 

 

Drinks were delivered, but it still took Obi-Wan some time to gather his composure and the process was fraught enough that he didn't want to rush it and end up in tears or some other-such while sitting in a caf shop. To Maul's continued credit, he didn't push for any kind of conversation and when Obi-Wan tugged his hand free, he didn't chase after it, just turned instead to the broad stoneware mug that looked like it had some kind of tea and milk blend in it and let the silence hold.

Obi-Wan was a little surprised when he took a sip of the same and felt the heat of alcohol, in addition to the heat of what seemed to be a chai blend, smooth and heavy on the sweet cream. "Whiskey?" he asked, pleased he managed to sound steady.

"A half a shot. If you don't like it, I'll order you one without," Maul answered, bordering apologetic. "It's not really enough to register for me, but I like the flavor it adds and figured you might as well."

Zabraks had notoriously high constitutions, in addition to a higher pain tolerance threshold; at least, in comparison to humans. Obi-Wan supposed a half-zabrak would inherit some of that heartiness. And really, a half-shot of whiskey wasn't enough to even buzz Obi-Wan, so he just nodded and took a longer sip before wrapping his hands around his mug, letting them warm to it. "It is good."

Maul nodded back, watching him with enough worry that it made Obi-Wan's skin prickle.

Which was why it came as something of a shock when Maul said, "I think you should tell her it was you. I know she's always wanted to know. And she would want to thank you."

Obi-Wan buried himself in a sip of his drink more to hide the way his lip wanted to  _raise_ at that. He felt exposed, felt scraped right across his soul; the last thing he wanted was _thanks_ for finding Mazi Organa's brother already dead, already mutilated and desecrated. "I don't require thanks," was what he managed to say, stiffly.

Maul pressed his mouth into a line briefly, ironically quite like his adopted mother. And he had that same damningly gentle tone of voice when he replied, "It isn't for you that I'm making the suggestion, Obi-Wan. It's for her."

The words seemed to collapse something inside of him that Obi-Wan hadn't even known was there; he sagged some in his chair, closing his eyes and laying his head back, just-- breathing. Or trying to. He felt cold, even though he knew he wasn't; felt breakable, or half-broken, too. He could immediately see the point -- all of the points -- Maul was making with that suggestion, and all of them rang true and rather wise, considering that Maul had just been jumping out of an airspeeder only a short while ago like he had a deathwish he was courting.

He almost wanted to snap back and ask who Maul thought he was, counselling against keeping secrets, but he knew that was both cruel and unwarranted.

"I had nightmares about it for-- a long time," he said, after long minutes of sitting there, too cold internally to stop his shivering and too paralyzed to move to do something about it. "I would wake up screaming, seeing him in my mind. Occasionally, even more recently, I've had them crop up. My Master constantly counselled me to release my feelings into the Force for everything from teenage infatuation to whatever awful thing we encountered, and even _he_ didn't admonish me for my reactions. It was horrible."

It was a relief when Maul didn't say anything to that; so many people expressed horror or they diverted to platitudes, all well-meaning and kind and all of them hollow. Though, Obi-Wan had been woken by enough of Maul's nightmares, even if he couldn't tell what they were in specific, that he supposed if anyone would know the preciousness of silence in relation to such things, it would be Maul.

"I'll tell her," he said, without pulling his head back down, not wanting to see whatever look he was getting back. "For now, are you interested in ordering something with a little _more_ whiskey?"

"I could," Maul said, evenly. "We might have to stay the night, if that's all right with you. There's a hotel, though."

Obi-Wan gave a huff of a laugh, humorless. "Do they serve breakfast?"

 

 

 

Getting drunk had definitely not been on Obi-Wan's list of things to do, but then again, neither had back-country extreme skiing, avalanches or soul-baring been. He was fairly careful not to overindulge the urge very often, not because the urge didn't exist, but because he was afraid he might miss something critical while he was in the haze of alcohol. It muted his sense of the Force; sometimes, it seemed to numb it almost entirely. Obviously, that was rather awful of him, given that his entire Order and every other Force sensitive, save it seemed for one nobleman zabrak, had been wiped out by that, except more permanently.

They matched shots, but Maul did prove to have the far superior constitution; by the time Obi-Wan was too drunk to stand on his own, Maul was only a bit unsteady and still capable of navigating them from the tavern that was directly next to the caf shop to the hotel that was all the way down the main drag. Obi-Wan only tried once to walk on his own before letting himself rely on Maul's strong shoulders to keep him on his feet, and he was so trapped between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry that he couldn't accomplish either.

He wasn't wholly sure how he went from the front desk, trying not to be an embarrassment, to laying on a bed in a double room, but the ceiling was doing half-circles until he closed his eyes. "You're not in trouble for staying out drunk, right?" he asked, waiting for the bed to stop moving, as he felt Maul sit down and work on unlacing his boots, albeit slowly.

"I'm well past the age of majority, Obi-Wan," Maul answered dryly. "The worst I'll have to contend with is possibly a gossip columnist or two speculating about my romantic life."

Obi-Wan's eyes shot open, despite the thing that did to his stomach, and he picked his head up. "Really?" he asked, more incredulously than he quite meant to.

"I'm a member of the royal family." Maul shrugged. "Relax, they already think I'm sleeping with you."

Obi-Wan's mouth opened and closed a few times, as he gaped like a fish, trying to jam that into his alcohol-soaked brain enough for it to make sense. It was terribly unoriginal, but he ended up just repeating himself.  _"Really?"_

Maul finished pulling his boots off and stood carefully, showing quite some impressive fortitude against his own alcohol consumption, then moved to try to get Obi-Wan under the blankets he was laying on. "You currently live in the palace, I'm an eligible son of a noble house. It's not exactly a large leap to make that assumption. Certainly it's more plausible than me sleeping with the Prince and Princess."

Obi-Wan wiggled half-heartedly to help, until he realized he was fully dressed and managed to struggle up to sit so he could at least take off some layers. But he was still boggling about this revelation. "And this doesn't bother you..?"

Maul let him, too, sitting on the other bed; somewhere, he'd already shed his parka and now he just pulled off his sweater and laid it aside, leaving behind a black t-shirt. "There have been any number of things whispered about me. Fortunately, Alderaan is considerably better about such things than most worlds and the majority of those whispers are just the nasty sorts that pass between rival houses and the occasional less-scrupulous gossip columnist. It's not their esteem I want, anyway."

Obi-Wan managed to tangle himself up badly enough that it took Maul rescuing him, but then he was at least stripped to his pants and under the covers. He wasn't sure what compulsion he had that made him reach out and snag the zabrak by his wrist, but he didn't let go of it, either, something almost desperate clawing at the inside of his breastbone. A thousand things wanted to pour out of his mouth -- observations and apologies and questions -- but one floated to the surface and he asked, "How did you do that, earlier? On the mountain."

Maul turned his wrist into Obi-Wan's thumb, breaking the hold, though not roughly. Obi-Wan could see he wasn't happy with the question, but Maul just said, "I don't know. I haven't done that before, not like that. All I know is that I wasn't angry."

That last part was a bit defensive. Which made sense; maybe when he was sober, Obi-Wan would know _why_ it made sense. "I know. That you weren't, I mean, I know that," he half-babbled, before taking a breath, head spinning, eyes sliding closed without his permission. "You were the storm, too. Maul, I'm so sorry."

He could feel the tears burning behind his eyelids; for this. For Tayvor Mandirly. For Queen Mazi and for her children, loved and wounded and healing.

Maybe, even, a little for himself.

In his daze, drifting quickly towards unconsciousness, he nonetheless heard Maul breathe out quietly, and felt him sit down on the edge of the bed. "This isn't the time for this," he said, after a moment. "Just-- I've already forgiven you. I don't like feeling angry and I don't want to hang onto it, so if that's what's torturing you, then let it _go_. The rest can wait for morning." A beat. "And for the hangover to fade."

Obi-Wan nodded -- or thought he nodded, or felt he nodded -- and he even managed a little huff of a laugh back for the addition, and somehow it felt-- not bad, that he ended up fading off into the darkness in tears.

They hurt, but they at least felt clean.


	7. Chapter 7

Unsurprisingly, Obi-Wan woke up hung over.

He jerked awake with a vicious headache, stomach heaving some at his rapid return to consciousness, and immediately turned onto his side to curl a little around himself and try not to throw up. His eyes felt like he'd been rubbing them in a sand dune; when he reached up to scrub at them, he winced at how shaky his hand was.

The night filtered back in; he hadn't really embarrassed himself too badly until the end of it, at least. He was a little chagrined to remember that he'd had yet another emotional breakdown, but there wasn't anything to be done for it now.

He also realized that Maul had flipped the tables on him yet again. And that this was rather rapidly becoming a habit.

He pried his eyes open again and eyed Maul, still asleep on the opposite bed with his back to Obi-Wan; at some point, he had partially kicked off his covers and entirely without meaning to, Obi-Wan found himself staring at the strip of exposed skin where Maul's t-shirt had ridden up during the night.

Rich black, broken only by what looked like a red diamond pointing down to--

Even as hung over as he was, Obi-Wan felt that distinctive stir of arousal at the sight.

He actually snorted aloud at himself. "Absolutely _not_."

Maul made some noise of protest at the sound, pulling one of the pillows over his head and shifting to lay more on his belly; even asleep, there was a sinuous quality to the motion that made Obi-Wan roll his scratchy eyes, though more at himself for his interest than at Maul for-- apparently just being _Maul_. Shaking his head, he just got up, slowly, reeling against the headache and went to go and get a shower; hopefully by the time it was over, he would have healed himself far enough to function and put that firmly out of mind.

 

 

 

It turned out that Maul had more than enough temper when he was hung over.

He hadn't done anything but offer a grunt to Obi-Wan passing him to get to the shower; by then, Obi-Wan's head still ached a little, but nothing at all as bad as it had been. The hotel did serve breakfast and they were up early enough for it; Obi-Wan slipped out and got some for both of them, rueing a little bit that he hadn't been the one to buy the drinks the night before. Though, admittedly, he would have probably run out of credits before he had gotten as drunk as he did.

When Maul staggered out of the shower, he just groaned at the smell of the food and went to pull the rest of his clothes back on.

"You should probably eat something; we missed dinner," Obi-Wan suggested, keeping his volume down.

"That would be a terrible idea," Maul answered, voice grating a little.

From what Obi-Wan could remember, Maul had barely gotten tipsy the night before. His brow furrowed. "That bad? You seemed considerably less drunk than I was last night."

The look he got back was squinty and bleary and he wasn't entirely sure Maul _actually_ flashed his canines in a quick snarl, but it wouldn't have shocked him terribly given what the zabrak said next.

"I matched you shot for shot and drank just as little water." Maul picked his sweater up, pulling it on and growling quietly when one of his horns poked through the knit before he could free it. "Therefore, I am every bit as hung over, even if I didn't get as drunk."

"Oh." Obi-Wan frowned; that hardly seemed fair. "That's a shame."

Maul finally managed to get his sweater untangled and then he pointed at Obi-Wan, and this time, his teeth were definitely bared. "I know of many places on this planet where I can hide a body so it'll never be found, and if you keep talking, Master Jedi, you _will_ be in one of those before the hour's up."

Somehow, despite the teeth and the rumble in that threat, Obi-Wan didn't feel the least bit concerned. It was no different than him threatening to tie Quinlan's locks to the back of an airspeeder for talking too much when he was hung over himself as a padawan, and when Obi-Wan realized that he had graduated into casual threats of bodily injury or outlandish death, he realized that he had cleared some hurdle of friendship he hadn't before.

As such, he chewed on a smirk and held quiet for a short time before asking, "One of your swamps?"

"Straight to the bottom," Maul shot back, grabbing his parka and pulling it on. "Either bring your breakfast or walk back to Aldera."

 

 

 

The ride back was just as surly, though mostly it was a silent surly, which gave Obi-Wan more time than he wanted to think about what he had promised to do the night before. Namely, to tell Queen Mazi that he had been the one to find her brother's body. He knew delaying it would likely result in Maul judging him for his prevaricating, but it wasn't something he was looking forward to anyway; even as he knew he was going to go do this, he tried half-heartedly to think of reasons why he shouldn't or couldn't.

At least the presence of the hangover saved him from another skiing session, either learning himself or watching Maul do something wildly crazy. Not that he had disliked it, but he could live without the eyebleeding suit for awhile and give himself a chance to refocus. He'd mostly healed himself by the time they landed back in Aldera, to a blustery but clear day, too.

Maul shut down the speeder, then pushed his sunshades up to hook the bridge of the nose over his foremost horn and took a moment to rub at his eyes.

"I can probably take the edge off of that fairly easily," Obi-Wan offered, the first time he'd spoken in a bit less than a half-hour, and he still kept his voice quiet enough to respect the fact that Maul didn't know how to heal himself yet and thus was still suffering the full force of their night's indulgence. "At least until you can take something for it."

Maul trailed his fingers down the bridge of his nose, then leaned his head back, eyes closed, before answering, "If I had wanted your help, I would have asked for it."

Apparently, they had not quite yet disarmed the distrust Obi-Wan had provoked. Still, Obi-Wan felt at least sure enough of himself to bite back a little, if more kindly than not. "Is there a purpose to this hard-headedness beyond my foul-ups?"

Maul rolled his head against the seat and eyed him, squinting some against the light, expression hard. "The very last thing I want right now is to be in any way _beholden_ to you, Obi-Wan. At least, any further than I already am."

Obi-Wan blinked back at that, surprised. And-- not hurt, exactly, but certainly finding it easy to empathize with that sentiment, even though the sentiment was a painful one. Looking at it from that perspective, he wouldn't really want to feel he owed someone who had hurt him either; even if Maul had forgiven him, he wasn't in any way obligated to just forget it and wipe the slate clean again.

"Look, you don't owe me. You're not beholden to me," he said back, level. "If anything, at this point, I'd venture the opposite; thanks to you, I've had a comfortable place to live, plenty of food and good company for months now. I've tentatively learned how not to humiliate myself on skis, and I don't even want to know what it cost to pay up the bar tab from last night." That part was a little bit of a joke, and the stony expression on Maul's face cracked some for it, though not entirely.

"In that case, then, you owe _Bail._ And Breha and Mazi." Maul looked away again, crossing his arms.

Obi-Wan stuffed down a sigh, even if it was one that would come of an affectionate exasperation. "I owe them in addition." He took a slow breath in and just-- thought about it for a moment. Emotional honesty had never been his strong suit, but he was rapidly realizing that being emotionally _dishonest_ was a very quick way to lose ground here, so he steeled himself and said, "Maul, saving your life was the best thing I've done in years. I-- can't even start to tell you, how much it meant to be able to save someone instead of feel them die from the inside out. To be able to do something good, to be able to help someone. I've spent the years since the Order fell apart adrift and miserable and-- as your mother said, building a pyre for myself. I know why you're unhappy with me, I know that being forgiven doesn't mean the suffering I caused you vanished, but I do wish you'd stop thinking that every kind thing I offer is going to be held against you."

Maul didn't look back at him, but he arched a brow in an eloquent reply as to how much he actually believed that.

"It costs me nothing," Obi-Wan added. "If I ever try to give you grief over it, you can promptly drown me in the deepest, most smelly, leech-infested swamp you know."

That got back a little huff of a laugh. "Drowning would be too quick for you to gain a full appreciation of how foul such places are."

Obi-Wan shrugged. "All right, then you can slowly dip me into it while you cackle at my abject discomfort and the leeches bleed me dry over whatever period of time it takes."

Maul was still clearly wrestling with it, though at least there was some amusement on his face now. When he did relent, it was perfectly obvious that this was a situation where a single wrong beat would probably destroy something, and that him relenting had been no easy thing.

It was such a simple thing, offering to help heal a headache. Obi-Wan wondered some if he'd ever had such gravity attached to something so small. He turned in his seat, though, reaching out slowly and raising his eyebrows. "I promise, clenching your teeth like that will completely wreck any attempt I make at fixing this," he said, with a quiet chuckle.

The muscles jumped in the black frame of Maul's jaw, but then he rolled his eyes and turned to face Obi-Wan; he didn't flinch when Obi-Wan rested light fingers around his temple horns, but it was easy to see the stiffness and wariness in his posture. No doubt that was going to make it harder, but instead of trying to detangle that, Obi-Wan just closed his own eyes, letting himself slip into a deeper connection with the Force.

Healing was one of his weakest disciplines but he could manage small things fairly easily, and out of desperation he had succeeded in at least one very large one; he'd kept Maul alive, even though it took doctors and bacta to actually heal him. Though, in retrospect, he hadn't been exaggerating any when he had said Maul had as much a hand in it by holding on, too; now, just trying to take away a simple headache felt incredibly difficult by comparison, locked on the other side of those mental shields.

Instead of pushing, though, he just brushed mental fingers against the outside, metaphorically stroking away the rocky, sharp edges of pain that he could get at.

It did work, albeit slowly; a little at a time, he more sensed Maul relaxing than felt it, and without really even meaning to, he shushed aloud, just mindlessly soothing. Those shields never fell, but they did soften some, enough for Obi-Wan to get a little deeper and do a little more good.

When he'd done all he could, he opened his eyes and realized he hadn't quite disarmed his problem from earlier.

The sunlight gave a slightly golden cast to Maul's red and black skin, and there was something almost compelling about his long eyelashes, the softness of them contrast to the hard edges of his mask. Combined with the markings adorning his bottom lip, and Obi-Wan realized just how easy it would be to lean in a little further and kiss him. How much he _wanted_ to lean in and find out if that mouth felt as good as it looked.

That was definitely _not_ an option; if things were complicated enough by mistakes and hurt feelings, they'd get exponentially moreso.

Beyond that, Maul was quite firmly spoken for.

He realized that he was getting distracted and worryingly close to making that complication a reality and withdrew, smiling some. "Better?"

Maul cautiously opened his eyes, and seemed a little surprised when the sunlight wasn't causing him grief. He passed a hand across his brow, then nodded, looking a touch uneasy, though Obi-Wan didn't think it was because he caught that little turn of fascination there. "Yes, thank you," he said, rolling his shoulders and opening the door, climbing out of the speeder.

"Anytime," Obi-Wan answered, getting out himself and pushing any inappropriate thoughts back into the dark they'd crept out from.

 

 

 

He didn't go right away to Mazi; instead, taking advantage of the sunny day, he walked around Aldera, not wandering too far from the palace. He was nodded to enough times to realize that he was recognized in this city; that people knew him on sight, and it was a novel sensation. Not an unpleasant one, but different. He offered the same courtesy back, and it was while he was buying a pretty hand-made bracelet woven of beads and some type of grass as a gift for the Queen that he saw one of the reasons why his face might have been so well-known.

On the screen was the Aldera Advocate, with a holo of the night before where he had been drunkenly using Maul to hold him up on the main drag of Crestview. The headline read **Has the Only Royal Bachelor Finally Met His Match?**

He had half hoped that Maul's off-handed remark about gossip had been something his mind came up with under the influence of alcohol, but clearly it wasn't. When he finished paying for his gift, he noticed the shop attendant grinning at him conspiratorially.

Obi-Wan pressed a smile back as he groaned internally and beat it back for the palace.

The dread had returned by the time he got there; Mazi held open hours in the afternoon for the people of Alderaan to come and bring her petitions, or requests or even just to talk with her, and it said something to Obi-Wan that there _wasn't_ usually a great number of angry people lined up. That mostly, her visitors were school children on a field trip, or local Aldera citizens who came by simply to engage with her. Sometimes she'd have visiting dignitaries or people from further away, sometimes she'd have business interests come to speak with her, but mostly she wasn't mobbed and those who left often left smiling. And when they didn't leave smiling, it was clear it was because they had been put in their place.

It suggested what he'd already observed was true; that this was a happy world, mostly. A population of two billion people would guarantee that there would always be _some_ rough elements -- people were people, after all -- but between the peacekeepers and Alderaan's pacifist philosophies after their civil war, the vast majority were content. They were cared for. No one on Alderaan struggled, which left them room to strive for higher goals than mere survival. Even the monarchy was funded by the noble houses -- and primarily the one holding the throne -- and not by the individual citizen.

He waited patiently for the open hours to end, sitting in the throne room on one of the stone benches and absently rubbing at his wrists, first one and then the other. When Mazi nodded to the page to go ahead and close the doors, she came down from her spot and he rose to greet her.

He had a feeling she already knew something was going on by the look she gave him, not entirely dissimilar from the one he had gotten before he had confessed to her that he had been digging around in Maul's history. Then she opened her mouth and confirmed it, "Maul said that you've got something to tell me. He didn't tell me what, but he suggested I might find it difficult to handle. And I have a feeling it doesn't refer to you and he being out drinking all night."

There wasn't any reproval in her tone; Obi-Wan didn't take her for being overbearing about such things anyway. He offered his arm and she took it, though she was the one who set their direction for a set of side-doors in the massive throne room. "It's related, but not to-- current events. Even if I didn't realize I would apparently entertain the tabloids."

Mazi snorted, patting his arm above where she was holding the crook of his elbow. "They pick on Maul because he doesn't rise to it. And they know better than to speculate about Bail and Breha. Read long enough and you'll see that my daughters also show up rather regularly, though Rouge less so these days, having married and settled into a perfectly normal life. Part and parcel of a public life, I'm afraid, but they're largely harmless and know that if they cross the truly awful lines, I'll make sure they never attend one of our galas again."

She said it lightly, but she seemed almost preoccupied. Obi-Wan still smiled some for the idea of a bunch of tabloid reporters and holo journalists trying to peek through the windows, forlorn for their exclusion. But then the smile fell away and he squeezed her arm a bit against his side, keeping his voice down and trying to keep it level as he said, "I-- I didn't know you were a Mandirly."

Mazi's mouth spasmed tighter, but her tone remained even as she asked, "This is about Tayvor, isn't it?"

"I was the one who found him." All attempts at composure and Jedi serenity aside, Obi-Wan's throat felt rough when he said it and he was rather unprepared for how much it hit him, just putting the words into the air. He tried to swallow the ache down, though he largely failed. "I-- if I would have known, I would have--"

He wanted to say he would have told her sooner, but the moment he tried, he realized that he might _not_ have. That he might have just buried it and hidden it and perhaps found a way to leave this place; that he would have found some justification for never letting her know.

Mazi didn't call him out on his near-lie. She didn't say anything, but her grip on his arm firmed even more, as if she had to keep him there. He reached out with the other one and opened the door to the outer hallway for her, into the wide swaths of sunlight shining in, swallowing down and forcibly repressing a shiver.

For as many things -- many awful things -- he had seen as a Jedi, only rarely did the passing thought occur about those who had been left behind to cope. Those who lost, those who were left to mourn their dead. Obi-Wan had been haunted by the man for all of these years, but it wasn't until confronted with the man's family that he could see some part of the magnitude of what it was to be bound by spilled blood. He had been taught all of his life to let go of such things; to never get attached so that he might never be tempted by the anger and grief of losing. And largely he had lived his life by that ideal; even though Tayvor Mandirly's gruesome death had given him more nightmares than he liked to acknowledge, it had never occurred to him to come and speak to Tayvor's family. He knew they would have been informed; he was only a padawan, then, so that would be left to a knight or (more likely) a master. But he never imagined coming here himself.

Mazi didn't speak for quite a long time, her expression hard and distant. They just walked through the hall, slowly, even if the warm light streaming in couldn't quite reach the chill Obi-Wan felt in his bones.

When she did stop, she turned and looked at him. "You were just a boy when that happened," she said, and later it would not surprise Obi-Wan overly much that she echoed her youngest son near precisely as she said it, though she was considerably more firm in that statement.

"Seventeen. An adult," he answered, trying to reassure her.

Like Maul, she didn't challenge him on it, though he could see that she also didn't agree with that assessment. He was grateful that she didn't push the issue; old criticisms of Jedi stealing and mistreating children had re-surged terribly during the plague, but had since died with the Order and anything that even hinted towards it made him feel uncomfortable.

Instead, again like Maul, she said, "I'm sorry that you saw that, Obi-Wan. But thank you, both for bearing it and for making sure his body was sent home."

Obi-Wan had to try to swallow around the lump in his throat again, this time for the gentle sincerity in her voice, even as it was clear that thinking of it all hurt her. "If I would have gotten there even a little earlier--" he found himself saying, and flinched internally at that old insecurity rearing its head, especially at such an inappropriate time.

That seemed to bother Mazi a great deal; she let go of his arm and the more remote expression in her eyes cracked as she ducked her head to try to get him to look up from the ground. "Oh, Obi-Wan. No, my dear, that's not how-- that's not how it works."

It was uncharacteristic for Mazi to stumble over words and that was mostly why he did raise his gaze to meet hers. When he did, she reached up and laid a hand to his cheek, thumb stroking like she could soothe away invisible tears as she said, "Lay the blame where it belongs: on those who killed my brother. Not on the shoulders of the very young man who had to live with the aftermath."

Later, he'd wonder if he could ever figure out what it was about this family that so often left his carefully constructed defenses in pieces around him, as he found himself crying his heart out for the second time in less than a day.

 

 

 

She didn't let him go right away; Obi-Wan had never had a mother (or didn't remember his own), but without even meaning to he found himself deferring automatically to her maternal kindnesses anyway, and while part of himself cursed the fact that the comforting rightfully should have gone the other way -- this whole family had table-turning down to an art -- the other part of him accepted it and even ached for it. It left him feeling shaken up, somewhere between his upbringing in the Temple and what he had ached for many times in his early childhood; how many times he'd felt so incredibly _lonely_ , wanting for the nonjudgmental kindness and care of someone who would not admonish him for feeling the way he did, even if he shouldn't have.

Instead of insisting he didn't need it, even internally, he sat on one of the window benches with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, and when he finally managed to pull it back together, only then did Mazi release him to go and get himself some lunch.

"You also have a meeting with the tailor in about three hours," she had said, pressing his hand still clutching her handkerchief back to his chest in a silent command he keep it. "You're welcome to ask for a formal set of robes, if that suits you best, or whatever else you think appropriate for the coronation of a queen."

He hadn't even considered protesting, still feeling like he was on shaky emotional ground, and just nodded.

It felt oddly right to lean down and kiss her cheek, as he had seen all of her children do at some point or another, even if he thought it hubris to consider himself anything the same as them. It likewise felt right to give her the bracelet he had bought her, and accept the kiss on the cheek he got back.

When he went to the royal suite where he was supposed to meet the tailor, Bail and Maul were both already there for fitting; they, too, managed to be more perceptive than he was strictly comfortable with. He could chalk Maul's concerned look up to Force sensitivity, perhaps, but Bail also gave him a long look and even though it had been hours since Obi-Wan had been crying, he wondered at how obvious he was.

"You okay?" Bail asked; there was still some wariness in his eyes, and Obi-Wan didn't fail to notice the way he seemingly unconsciously ghosted a hand down Maul's arm, but it wasn't anywhere as bad as it had been since his mistake.

Obi-Wan nodded, crossing his arms, breaking eye contact despite trying not to. "I'm all right." A beat, then he heaved out a slightly ragged sigh. "Ah-- a little shaken up and sore," he amended, through some force of will, "but not-- not bad, I'll be all right."

"Thank you for doing that," Bail said, and when Obi-Wan looked up, he was touched by the kindness in the man's eyes, even if he knew he probably had quite some way to go before he managed to finish overcoming his errors.

Not knowing how to answer, Obi-Wan only nodded, taking a few careful breaths just to try to keep the tenuous control he had regained.

He wondered a bit what it said about him, that kindness often hurt more than a physical blow.

"Any suggestions on what I should wear to Breha's coronation?" he asked, after a couple of moments, trying to force a smile. That became a thousand times easier when Maul opened his mouth, something rather mischievous on his face; Obi-Wan puffed himself up stiffly, cutting him off. "No, you are emphatically _not_ allowed to make recommendations, I can still see that ski suit burned into my retinas every time I close my eyes."

"I was only going to say that you looked positively _dashing_ in neon," Maul said back, with faux meekness, at least until he flashed a sharpish grin.

"Wait, what?" Bail asked, looking between them with curiosity lighting up in his dark eyes.

Obi-Wan turned his nose up a little, something in his heart warming, floating. "Your lover decided that, as a safety measure, the ski suit I was to wear while learning would be neon yellow and pink. A terrible combination with my complexion, I'll have you know."

"You _didn't_." Bail turned his attention to Maul, aghast, though it was quite easy to tell that it was all in good humor.

Maul didn't succeed in looking contrite. "I figured that until he learned, everyone should be able to see him coming and therefore get out of his way."

Bail eyed Obi-Wan again. "And you _wore_ it?"

Obi-Wan just shrugged, rather like he had been well-pecked and knew it. And moreso, that he had it coming.

"All right, no neon," Bail decided, shaking his head with a chuckle. "I can't speak for the slopes, but we don't need any eye-sores stealing the attention while my wife gets crowned."

The softer look Bail gave him after that was unexpected, but Obi-Wan treasured it more than he really could have ever described.


End file.
